Thanks for the heads up, bardou!

A continual curiosity to me is the Contra Costa Times is also a Knight Ridder publication, same as the San Jose Mercury News. And PG&E is the local utility supplying Silicon Valley and the East Bay, and most of Northern California... et. al.

Yet, this article DOES NOT appear in the more widely read S.J. Merc. News. Is there a Y2K disconnect in the Silly Valley? We would welcome newz about our electric suppliers Y2K contingency plans too!

*Sheesh*

Diane

Published Tuesday, September 28, 1999

PG&E has a hands-on policy
Utility will have staff available over the New Year's weekend to run the system manually in case there are problems

By George Avalos
TIMES STAFF WRITER

http://www.hotcoco.com/biztech/stories_business/srt33219.htm

[Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only]

PG&E is prepared to take a hands-on approach should the Year 2000 computer glitch jolt its crucial systems at year's end.

The utility says it is ready to handle any power failures or other system hiccups that might be unleashed by a computer malfunction. The company has reached this level of confidence after it staged some drills and simulations.

But PG&E has devised a "just in case" contingency plan. "If something happened on a broad scale, and for some reason we lost some major technology, we plan to operate the gas and electric systems manually," said Lyman Shaffer, PG&E's manager of corporate security.

PG&E intends to deploy workers who normally would be off-duty on New Year's weekend and, in some cases, use them as stand-ins for computer systems.

"Rather than use computers or devices that oversee operations of the systems, we would have folks who would monitor the lines and the systems," said Diana Gapuz, a PG&E spokeswoman. "We would not rely on a computer or a device to provide information about the system."

The Y2K computer perils are linked to some software codes that assign a two-digit number such as "00" to record the date. That means computers could misread the year 2000 as 1900, which could trigger computer malfunctions or shutdowns.

The vacations of many employees have been canceled for the last week in December and the first week in January.

About 500 to 1,000 additional PG&E employees are expected to be working on New Year's weekend. The company in all has about 21,500 workers.

"We will have enough people to operate the system manually if things go wrong, and if a large storm occurs at the same time," Shaffer said.

All of PG&E's corporate and emergency centers will be staffed for the Y2K rollover, including its emergency center in San Francisco.

"We will staff this for at least four days, and longer, if we have to," Shaffer said. "We regard this as a major event. We are making this our highest level of emergency preparation."

The utility has also geared up to prepare equipment and staff for any problems at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant at Avila Beach near San Luis Obispo.

"We are preparing for the best-case scenario, and we also try to anticipate for the worst-case scenario," said Jeff Lewis, a spokesman for Diablo Canyon, which has 1,300 employees.

The two big concerns at the nuclear plant: PG&E wants to be sure the plant's reactor, which contains radioactive materials, can be shut down safely; and to have a contingency plan should local power failures cut off electricity to the plant.

Diablo Canyon officials want to be able to circulate water to cool the reactors. The company will use its standard contingent of six diesel generators, three for each reactor unit. The semi-truck-sized generators can keep critical systems operating in the event of a power failure.

The company has enough diesel fuel on hand at Diablo Canyon to keep the generators operating for a week. It will obtain enough additional fuel to keep them operating for an additional week beyond that.

Normally, about 130 Diablo Canyon employees are on duty 24 hours a day, every day of the year. About 80 more people will be on call.

A government report issued earlier this month predicts that widespread financial, communications, transportation and power breakdowns are unlikely in the United States due to the Y2K bug. However, some scattered woes could occur.

The study by the U.S. Senate's Special Committee on the Year 2000 reported that the utility and telecommunications industries are in good shape and financial services are in excellent shape as the Y2K date change looms.

"The key industries are in pretty decent shape," said Richard Bergeon, a Y2K consultant with NueVue International, a consultancy in Seattle. "They may have some problems that keep cropping up after the date change, or they may make some stupid errors that can cause problems. But I don't think we will see any catastrophic problems in the United States."

George Avalos covers technology, telecommunications and the Internet. Reach him at 925-977-8477 or gavalos@cctimes.com.

)1999 Contra Costa Newspapers, Inc.

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), October 01, 1999

Answers

For further Y2K articles...

Search the Contra Costa Times at...

http://www.hotcoco.com/ sitesearch/

Search the San Jose Mercury News at...

http://www.mercurycenter.com/resources/search/#sevendays

Search the San Francisco Gate's Chronicle & Examiner at...

http://www.sfgate.com/search/

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), October 01, 1999.

View a recent PG&E press release... (We're Y2K-OK--toss the preps out the window!)...

September 23, 1999

PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC COMPANY DECLARES MISSION- CRITICAL SYSTEMS Y2K READY

Pacific Gas and Electric Company announced today all its mission- critical systems are 100 percent Year 2000-ready.

http://www.pge.com/whats_new/news/releases/1999/ quarter03/990923r.htm

"We have now completed a long process of rigorous review and testing and have determined that all of our mission-critical systems are Year 2000-ready," said George Orlov, Pacific Gas and Electric Company's vice president and chief information officer. "We fully expect our mission-critical systems to function properly on January 1, 2000."

[snip]

Mission-critical systems that have been reviewed and are now Year 2000-ready include those that enable the delivery of gas and electricity, monitor distribution and transmission systems, provide outage information, ensure safety at power plants, and support business operations and customer service.

[snip]

Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the utility unit of PG&E Corporation, is one of the nation's largest investor-owned electric and gas utilities, serving about 13 million people in Northern and Central California. The company's 70,000-square-mile service area stretches from Eureka in the north to Bakersfield in the south, and from the Pacific Ocean in the west to the Sierra Nevada in the east.

###

[Note: including the State of Californias capitol... Sacramento].

Or study the rest of PG&Es reassuring info lite, and what they DONT mention in the happy press release at...

http://www.pge.com/ resources/compliance/

[snip]

Getting prepared with others
Even if our gas and electric systems perform flawlessly, we depend on the reliability of other entities in todays energy industry. To deliver power to our customers, we rely upon the California Independent System Operator (ISO) which controls the operation of the States electrical transmission system. The ISO depends on the proper operation of various transmission systems to which it is connected throughout the western part of the US and Canada. Also, the Power Exchange (PX) buys and sells power for us; it relies on many other power plants that must function properly to provide power needed at any time. We also rely upon gas suppliers, marketers and shippers in order to deliver gas to customers.

We are contacting our mission-critical business partners to find out whether their products and services will continue to operate and be available into the Year 2000. We are preparing contingency plans for each of these relationships, just in case one may not be Y2K-ready.

[snip]

Your own preparation
Because of the complexities of technology and extensive interdependencies in todays world, no one entity is able to guarantee that there will be no interruptions due to Y2K. Just as we are developing contingency plans for the Year 2000, we encourage you to develop plans for your own special needs.

[snip--to end]

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), October 01, 1999.

Diane;

This gives me a real warm fuzzy feeling (NOT)...

Have they figured out what to do if the tie lines go down?

Maybe it WOULD be a good idea to turn of the power in the house for the rollover after all.;)

-- Helium (Heliumavid@yahoo.com), October 01, 1999.

Wait Helium... it get's fuzzier...

Dig a bit deeper and the uneasiness sorta surfaces... i.e. announcing 100% compliance... doesn't MEAN they ARE!

*Oh Joy!*

Diane

August 4, 1999

PG&E CORP (PCG)
Quarterly Report (SEC form 10-Q)

MANAGEMENT'S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS

http://biz.yahoo.com/e/ l/p/pcg.html

[snip]

Year 2000:

The Year 2000 issue exists because many computer programs use only two digits to refer to a year, and were developed without considering the impact of the upcoming change in the century. If PG&E Corporation's mission-critical computer systems fail or function incorrectly due to not being made Year 2000 ready, they could directly and adversely affect our ability to generate or deliver our products and services or could otherwise affect revenues, safety, or reliability for such a period of time as to lead to unrecoverable consequences.

Our plan to address the Year 2000 issues focuses primarily on mission- critical systems whose components are categorized as in-house software, vendor software, embedded systems, and computer hardware.

The four primary phases of our plan to address these systems are inventory and assessment, remediation, testing, and certification. Certification occurs when mission-critical systems are formally determined to be Year 2000 ready. "Year 2000 ready" means that a system is suitable for continued use into the year 2000. Once Year 2000 ready, additional standards and processes are imposed to prevent systems from being compromised.

Our Year 2000 project is generally proceeding on schedule. The following table indicates our Year 2000 progress as of July 26, 1999.

Year 2000 Readiness of Mission-Critical Items

Remediation Testing Certification
Completed Completed Completed
---------------------------------------
In-house software
100% 99% 99%
Vendor software
100% 100% 100%
Embedded systems
100% 100% 81%
Computer hardware
100% 100% 100%

The percentages above reflect approximations based on a uniform reporting system that combines subsidiary results to provide a consistent, corporate- wide view and are derived using standard rounding conventions. Even where 100% is reported, there may be remaining items. Moreover, changes in inventories, or issues uncovered in subsequent phases for an item previously reported as completed, may lead to downward adjustments in percentages from period to period. Even after systems are certified, we are continuing various kinds of validation and quality assurance efforts, and may do so into the year 2000.

The Utility routinely reports Year 2000 progress to the CPUC, North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The Utility has notified NERC and the NRC that it is Year 2000 ready, with limited exceptions.

In addition to internal systems, we also depend upon external parties, including customers, suppliers, business partners, gas and electric system operators, government agencies, and financial institutions to support the functioning of our business. To the extent that any of these parties are considered mission-critical to our business and experience Year 2000 problems in their systems, our mission-critical business functions may be adversely affected. To deal with this vulnerability, we have a four phased approach for dealing with external parties: (1) inventory, (2) action planning, (3) risk assessment, and (4) contingency planning. The contingency planning process also addresses exposures that could result from failures in our own essential business systems. Contingency plans will be revised throughout 1999 as necessary.

The Utility's contingency plans are being incorporated into its emergency plans and may include measures such as emergency back-up and recovery procedures, augmenting automated applications with manual processes, and identification of alternate suppliers. Electric transmission and generation plans are coordinated with those of the ISO and PX and are consistent with Western Systems Coordinating Council and NERC recommendations and NRC guidelines. The plans will be tested in Utility and electric-industry drills in which the Utility participates throughout 1999, and updated as necessary.

As of June 30, 1999, we estimate total costs to address Year 2000 problems to be $223 million, of which $97 million is attributed to the Utility. Included are systems replaced or enhanced for general business purposes and whose implementation schedules are critical to our Year 2000 readiness.

Through June 1999, we spent approximately $166 million, of which $91 million was capitalized. The remaining $75 million was expensed. Future costs, including contingency funds, to address Year 2000 issues are expected to be $57 million, of which $23 million will be capitalized. The remaining $34 million will be expensed.

Based on our current schedule for the completion of Year 2000 tasks, we expect to secure Year 2000 readiness of our mission-critical systems by the end of the third quarter of 1999. However, as our current schedule is partially dependent on the efforts of third parties, their delays and other factors we are not able to predict, may cause our schedule to change.

Although we expect our efforts and those of our external parties to be successful, given the complex interaction of today's computing and communications systems, we cannot be certain we will be completely successful. Accordingly, we have considered the most reasonably likely worst case Year 2000 scenarios that could affect us or the Utility, and we believe that they mainly involve public overreaction before and during the New Year period that could create localized telephone problems due to congestion, temporary gasoline shortages, and curtailment of natural gas usage by customers. In addition, it is reasonably likely that there will be minor technical failures such as localized telephone outages and small isolated malfunctions in our computer systems that will be immediately repaired. None of these reasonably likely scenarios are expected to have a material adverse impact on the Utility's or our financial position, results of operations, or cash flows. Nevertheless, if we, or third parties with which we have significant business relationships, fail to achieve and sustain Year 2000 readiness of mission-critical systems, there could be a material adverse impact on the Utility and our financial position, results of operations, and cash flows.

See also... discussion...

FYI: PG&E Insert - Y2K Briefing

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 001TN0

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), October 01, 1999.

Diane

Somehow, things that PG&E says never really "ring true". That paragraph about their suppliers leaves a lot of holes because they do have to buy so much power from outside sources. The city of Sacramento has its own utility district with some hydroelectric power resources.

Helium

When to turn the power off is something I have been thinking about. If the grid is on UTC, that presents a problem several hours before midnight in the US. I would be wary of any time when rollover hits any facility within my grid. I've also been thinking about which appliances, etc. it will be safe to plug in if we are getting "dirty" power. (No, I don't want to buy, or try to buy a new fridge on 1/3.) If utilities are up I'll be trying to access the internet with our old Mac IIsi that's been sitting in storage. A lot less loss if it gets fried.

-- Evelyn (equus@barn.now), October 01, 1999.

Most (if not all) of the Utilities plan to do this. Ive spoken to people who work for Utilities all around the country and there will be people in a lot of their substations, including management types who probably havent been in one in years. The story about Trans- Alta buying all of the can food contained the fact that the intended to have all of their stations manned.

Personally I think its mostly for a media show. And maybe security.

And, no, I intend to be home in bed, asleep.

-- The Engineer (The Engineer@tech.com), October 01, 1999.

But Engineer... you don't work for PG&E... do you?

For a little historical (earlier in the year) perspective on PG&Es Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, which impacts power in the Silicon Valley...

Go to...

San Luis Obispo County Telegram-Tribune... (another Knight Ridder publication)... and click on Search Site for local Y2K newz...

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/

PG&E readies for Y2K woes at Diablo
March 22, 1999

David Sneed
Telegram-Tribune

http:// vh1428.infi.net/stories/0399/y2k22.htm

Two little digits. That's all it took.

The failure of computer programmers to design their equipment to recognize all four digits of the year rather than just the last two is causing the government and private industry alike to spend billions of dollars correcting the problem.

Nowhere in San Luis Obispo County is the Y2K problem felt as acutely as at Pacific Gas and Electric Co. The utility is responsible for a massive power distribution network and a nuclear power plant -- all of which are reliant to some extent on computers and microchips.

The company is spending $180 million to get ready for the millennium rollover, said Barbara Engel, PG&E's Y2K readiness coordinator. At least a dozen technicians are working to debug Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.

"It's a huge effort," she said.

The company is confident that it will be ready for 2000 but is issuing no guarantees that there won't be a power outage Jan. 1. Too many factors affecting power supply lie outside the company's control, said Jeff Lewis, Diablo Canyon spokesman.

"Nobody can say 'I guarantee that won't happen,'" he said.

The Year 2000 problem, often called Y2K or the millennium bug, stems from the fear that electronic devices that only read the last two digits of the year will understand the year "00" not as 2000 but 1900 and will shut down or malfunction.

The magnitude of the problem is staggering. Kim Jeanes, local Y2K maven, estimates that more than 1.2 trillion lines of computer code in the United States has to be corrected by Dec. 31. And these lines of code are found in everything from mainframe computers to heart monitors.

PG&E's effort to deal with the Y2K problem started in August and will continue through the end of the year and beyond, said Chris Groff, Diablo Canyon's Y2K project manager. The plant must report by July 1 to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on the progress it has made in getting its mission-critical equipment ready for Y2K.

Groff hopes to report that the plant will be largely ready for the millennium rollover by July and that the last remaining bugs will be worked out by September or October.

"There's a lot going on," Groff said. "It was busy last year and it's going to be busy this year."

Engel estimates that PG&E's power distribution system is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness when it comes to Y2K. Power grid technology is simple but it lacks redundancy.

"Basically, you have poles and you have wires," she said. 'It's not that complicated."

But the nation's power grid is highly interconnected. What happens at a power plant in one part of the country can affect plants thousands of miles away.

The biggest threat is that one power company will not do the work necessary to get its plant ready for the millennium and will shut down in the early morning hours of Jan. 1. This, in turn, will cause other plants to work harder to take up the slack.

But if they work too hard, their safety systems will intervene and shut them down as well. Just such a cascading or domino phenomenon took place in August 1996 when an outage caused both Diablo Canyon reactors to shut down, leaving millions of people across nine western states without power.

"I'm encouraged by PG&E's Y2K preparedness, but locally isn't enough," Jeanes said. "If the other utilities are not compliant, we will have a domino effect that we will have to deal with."

The North American Electric Reliability Council ( NERC ), an umbrella organization, oversees the power grid. On Dec. 31, NERC plans to have power plants on standby that otherwise might be idle. This will provide a backup source of electricity and hopefully prevent a complete collapse of the power grid in the event several plants trip off line due to Y2K glitches.

The NERC has also scheduled Y2K drills for April 9 and Sept. 9. These are mostly chances for utilities to check out their communications systems and will not affect service, Lewis said.

NERC officials say they are confident that the electric power industry will be ready for the millennium.

"Although there is clearly much work to be done, we have found that North America's electric power supply and delivery systems are well on their way to being Y2K ready," said Michael Gent, president of NERC.

There are several reasons for this. Major calamities are almost always unexpected and Y2K is anything but unexpected.

"There's a lot of interest in this and it's only going to continue," Lewis said.

Additionally, the millennium rollover will take place when demand for electricity is low. Peak demand for electricity is in the heat of summer when countless air conditioners are running.

"This couldn't come at a better time -- in the dead of winter and in the middle of the night," Lewis said.

Meanwhile, workers at the power plant near Avila Beach are busy trying to meet the NRC's July 1 reporting deadline. This work falls into five distinct areas, Groff said.

First, all the equipment at the plant must be inventoried. Then the equipment must be evaluated to determine if it has Y2K bugs.

Next, those pieces of equipment that don't roll over properly will be repaired. These repairs must then be tested to see if the fix worked. Finally, all of this must be documented.

As of last week, Groff's team was finished with inventory and was 99 percent done with assessment. Fifty-six percent of the problems were fixed and 45 percent of those fixes were tested and 56 percent of the certification was done.

As with the company's distribution system, Diablo Canyon has gotten a couple of lucky breaks when it comes to Y2K.

Most importantly, the plant was built using 1960s technology, which is much less reliant on computers. Much of the safety equipment uses simple mechanical devices.

For example, one of the most crucial pieces of safety equipment is the reactors' control rods. These rods use gravity and an analog release mechanism to drop into the uranium core and stop the nuclear chain reaction.

"Most of our safety equipment and mechanical systems are not dependent on computers, so we could safely shut down the plant," Groff said.

Also, the plant has a training simulator that is an exact duplicate of the two reactor control rooms at the plant. This gives the Y2K folks a chance to work out bugs in a safe setting.

"We can play what-ifs," Groff said.

Finally, both reactors will have refueling outages this year -- one was just completed and the other will take place in October. This gives workers an economical chance to replace any equipment that is not Y2K ready.

In spite of all these preparations, no one knows for sure what will happen when the new millennium starts. The acid test will be whether the lights stay on.

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), October 01, 1999.

Thanks, Diane.

I live 1/4 to 1/2 mile from a sewer plant that relies on natural gas from PG&E to keep pumping. I had not considered heading for the hills until now. Yuck.

When I talked to the plant management last spring, they mentioned that they were installing generators and that they, too, had not heard much from PG&E.

I think I'll get that plumber's balloon this weekend - maybe a couple for my neighbors, too.

-- Margaret J (janssm@aol.com), October 01, 1999.

No, I don't work for them.

I was pointing out that all of the Utility people I've spoken to (across the country, with and without Nuke plants) know of plans to have (a lot of) extra people on duty during that time. And all of the people I've spoken to consider it to be (more or less) a show. I know of no one who actually works for a utility in a hands on capacity who is worried. Now they can all be dumb and dishonest. But somehow I don't think so.

-- The Engineer (The Engineer@tech.com), October 01, 1999.

LOL Engineer!

Sorry, but something about the way you phrased that just rang... "Now they can all be dumb and dishonest."

Not all... but what percentage would you say are?

;-D

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), October 01, 1999.

Earlier this year I read an article about this type of contingincy plan, and the article compared it to a guy in the emergency being told not to worry, If his heart stopped there would be 5 guys standing by to keep it pumping. It made me think twice.

-- Cy mchenry (cymchenry@seidata.com), October 01, 1999.

Engineer, if the power guys aren't worried, then I'm worried.

-- Ohio Bob (ohiobob@buckeyestate.com), October 02, 1999.