LawSight E-Letter

Senate Committee Projects Year 2000 Power Blackouts

Based on an industry survey and testimony from utility executives and regulatory officials, the Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Computer Problem projects serious problems with electric power delivery, including the threat of power blackouts.

The utility industry is subject to Year 2000 failures in their many traditional software systems and in the tens of millions of 'embedded chips' used in millions of control devices. The conclusions of the panel were bolstered by a computer model showing that failure of one plant or delivery system can cascade to cause brownouts or even blackouts over large regions.

See the LawSight Year 2000 resource at http://www.lawsight.com/2k.htm for more information on the Year 2000 computer problem.

Highlights:

"Quite honestly, I think we're no longer at the point of asking whether or not there will be any power disruptions, but we are now forced to ask how severe the disruptions are going to be," ... Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.).

Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah), chairman of the committee, indicated that if Jan. 1, 2000, were tomorrow, the national power grid would crash through lack of preparedness. He projected a 40 percent chance of a major blackout in 18 months.

http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/y2k/TWB19980612S0020 Of the 10 firms, only two had assessed their automated systems, one firm did not even know how many lines of computer code it had, and none had any >contingency plans. The companies responded to the survey under the promise of confidentiality.

http://www.desnews.com/cit/vl0mlh0m.htm [n]one of the utilities have assurances that their major suppliers are year 2000 compliant, which could cause disruptions. And none of the firms had completed contingency plans for year 2000-related problems.

Bennett also invited the Madison Gas & Electric Co. of Wisconsin to demonstrate a computer program showing that failure of one plant or delivery system can cascade to cause brownouts or even blackouts over large regions.

http://www.infoseek.com/Content?arn=a2593reuff-19980611&col=D4 At risk are about 6,000 power plants, half a million miles of high-voltage power lines and about 112,000 substations, most of which depend on built-in, preprogrammed microprocessors called ``embedded systems.''

'`When you consider the number of chips that need changing, outages are almost a certainty,'' said Andrew Pegalis, head of Next Millennium Consulting in Bethesda, Md.

`Embedded systems require a monumental effort. They first must be located, they must then be tested, and some of the manufacturers of these chips have gone out of business, which means you often don't know how they were programmed,'' he said.

Industry analysts predict the tedious task, including replacement chips, will cost most power companies between $10 million and $100 million.

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