Decreased reliability of the utility delievery systems!!!

(I posted this on Rick's board, but thought it might be informative here)

Rick,

Caught your quote (as follows) at TB2000.

(snip) Cowles said he did not expect a "big bang" on Jan. 1, 2000, but rather a period of perhaps two to four weeks when errors accumulate in data processing and control systems. "If you don't start dealing with those errors during the period when they are accumulating, you are going to see some major crashes, but that is not unique to the electric utility industry."

He added that he expected some nuisance failures and a decline in the reliability of utility delivery systems next year. "I don't think we are going to see anything that is catastrophic, that meets the end-of-the-world predictions of some of the stronger Y2K pundits," Cowles said.(end snip)

Ok Rick, belly up to bar - drinks are on me. I understand the "nuisance failures". I have been referring to them as "cosmetic failures", but I quibble.

What I am REALLY interested in is a clarification regarding a "decline in the reliability of the utility delivery system." Some questions:

1. Which portion(s)/aspect(s) of the delivery system will be impacted?

2. When you say 'reliability' are you referring to a decline in dependability or security (or both), and will they result in customer outages or simply reduced safety margins?

3. What components do you see failing due to Y2K that will act as the catalyst for the "decline in reliability" and can you describe the sequence events from the failure mode to the manifestation of the reliability issue?

4. Will these Y2K failures occur on rollover, or as a result of a time window failure sometime after the rollover?

5. Will you release the specific equipment model and failure mode so effective remediation can be implemented?

6. How did you derive the 2-4 week prediction?

This is what we all have been waiting for. Thanks for responding. This information will be extremely helpful.

cl@sky.com

-- cl@sky.com (cl_sky@excite.com), November 19, 1999

Answers

Informative how? If you've read Rick's stuff over the last year your questions were answered. Newbie?

-- Carlos (riffraff1@cybertime.net), November 20, 1999.

If, as you imply, you have read Rick Cowles' stuff over the last year then you'll know that cl is no newbie. Go to the archives at euy2k.com, do a search on cl's email. You'll find one of the better informed of the Y2K interrorgators, albeit a 'polly'.

-- who cares (dlkjd@slkjd.com), November 20, 1999.

Hello cl, It's nice to see you back at Ricks forum (and here), I've missed your excellent input at EUY2k. The shift from the y2k advocates from the "rollover" to "gradual slooooow build up" is quite funny in the context of embedded systems. All of the embedded systems I tested or reviewed in industry data that have y2k bugs have the problems right at MIDNIGHT, Jan. 1, 2000. Almost all devices operating at that time, will have problems at that moment - fortunately the vast majority of y2k bugs are minor date stamping issues, but if any serious ones are missed, we ll know then. There are of course some exceptions - equipment that is not continuously on will have any y2k problems the first time they are turned on in the year 2000, so the date is variable here, but these devices are very unlikely to be mission critical (examples are laboratory devices, test equipment, etc.).

For embedded systems, the "long and slow buildup" is more y2k nonsense.

Regards, Regards,

-- FactFinder (FactFinder@bzn.com), November 20, 1999.

Factfinder, last February I attended a presentation by Rick Cowles, which I wrote up for this forum. A build-up to problems after a few weeks is exactly what Cowles warned about then -- this is not any kind of Backing Away. The link to the thread that I wrote up is:

notes on R.Cowles' "Will the Lights Stay On in the Year 2000?" presentation on 2/26/1999

Having reviewed recent threads initiated by R.C. regarding the rather loose liberties that you seem to take on this serious Y2K issue, I advise you stop digging yourself into a deeper credibility hole....

41 days.

Y2K CANNOT BE FIXED!

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.~net), November 20, 1999.

I can't think of any better Y2K example of "odds versus stakes" than that of electrical power. Maybe the odds of long term power outages are small, but the stakes are enormous!!!!!

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), November 20, 1999.

Jack, I went to your thread and checked it out. The single chip thing isn't typical of embedded systems equipment. Every peice of lower level (true "embedded systems" using firmware) microproccessor based equipment I have seen or read about that had date functions consisted of: 1. firmware programming on a memory chip (PROM, EPROM, etc) 2. A real time clock, or very infrequently, firmware program counting of the microprocessor clock pulses to derive a date 3. A microprocessor 4. Lots of other circuit subcomoponents (ICs, descrete components)

The whole thing about a "chip" failing is a misconseption for the most part, practially all lower level embedded systems are exactly as described above. An RTC "chip" is often cited as an example of a "failure", yet it doesn't really fail, most just uses two digits and rolls over to "00" - the bios/programming has to interpret this correctly, however, or a date error will occur.

The question is, does the equipment fail to perform its function- and in most cases, it does, even with a y2k bug- the only thing typically that happens is a date stamp/display error. On very rare occasions, the primary functions use the date in calculations and a functional failure is likely.

Regarding my "credibility", it will not change in my industry as a result of anything said in this forum ;) In any case, I am quite confident that the new year will validate what I have stated concerning both electric utilities and oil and gas - Y2K bugs will cause no widespread significant problems, only a good number of minor problems, and very few scattered more serious problems. As far as US electricity goes, "localized" outages are a worst case scenario, I expect NONE due to DIRECT y2k bug problems - why? Even a rare y2k bug that could cause a loss of power production wouldn't likely lead to a transmission and distribution loss - it would take a number of generator failures (the number depends on the available operating capacity) to result in loss of T&D. Indirect causes due to improper responses to equipment problems could theorectially lead to power outages, but unlikely since you have to loose more than a few small generating units. T&D, regardless of what myths you have read, have date stamps in digital equipment but continue to function even with y2k bugs, and most installed T&D devices are older analog and electromechanical with no dates.

I am quite confident that the worst effects of Y2K will have occurred in 1999 with the installation of new software and equipment. I expect to hear of a few embedded system bugs right after the rollover, and more government sofware systems problems in the first month or two, but thats about it.

Regards,

-- FactFinder (FactFinder@bzn.com), November 20, 1999.