All the Y2K planning finally paid off for computer technicians at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas Inc. Computers at the council, which manages the power grid for 85 percent of the state, briefly registered a date of Aug. 16, 2021 on New Year's Eve, shutting the system down just hours before the state was officially scheduled to start deregulation.

Clocks skipped nearly two decades at 7 p.m. Dallas time – midnight in Greenwich Mean Time – and it took technicians at the power grid operator about four hours to restore all functions, said Sam Jones, chief operating officer.

In the meantime, the council used utility companies' computers to conduct business – so nobody's lights went out.

The fast forward occurred because of a mishap at Santa Rosa-based TrueTime Inc., which keeps time for clients including the reliability council through satellite systems. "Basically, there was a minor glitch in the rollover to the new year," said president and chief executive Elizabeth Withers. "Our Global Positioning System added a whole epoch."

She said many of TrueTime's customers never noticed their computers had experienced time travel because the hours and minutes registered on internal clocks were still correct. And even the computer issues at the reliability council didn't merit a mention in the deregulation brief that employees received at Dallas-based TXU Corp.

"ERCOT is structured in such a way that it has contingency plans for its backup plans for its redundant systems," TXU spokesman Chris Schein said. "We barely even noticed."

Dallas News

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