The Global Positioning System rolls over to 00 on August 22, 1999. I understand that the SCADA system, which controls/regulates the flow of electricity (as well as gas, oil and water) often needs to communicate with GPS satellites in order to know time/day, etc. When the GPS rolls over to 00, will SCADA systems -- and electric generation and everything else that relies on SCADA -- be affected?

-- Anonymous, October 23, 1998

Answers

Hello, Wendy. I have no technical expertise in this area, but the recent ABC Nightline Y2K television broadcast had a short segment in which Rick Cowles spoke on this subject. You can review the whole transcript of the show at: http://www.abcnews.com/onair/nightline/transcripts/ntl_981020_trans.html

It's a shame they gave Rick so little time to speak, but at least it was a start in getting more media coverage of Y2K and utility problems. I've copied the section about the GPS satellites below:

"RICK COWLES, Y2K CONSULTANT The Global Positioning System is used to synchronize the power grid in various different locations in the United States and the Global Positioning System is going to be rolling over on August 22nd, 1999, its going to be transitioning into a new realm. When it does that, there are ground based receivers that cant interpret the date properly and because they cant interpret the date properly, theyre going to be non-functional."

-- Anonymous, October 24, 1998

You will find some information to your question amongst the sites listed at my webpage. Look under the GPS section: http://www.cairns.net.au/~sharefin/Markets/Y2k.htm

It does appear that GPS is an integral system to the power running smoothly. But I think that another time data source can be introduced into the system to bypass the necessity for the GPS time signal. This perhaps will be needed to be done with all power plants that rely upon the GPS time signal. From what I have found out all the receivers of the 'Atomic Time Signal' need to have their code remediated to a compliant status. This includes banks, telecoms and some satellites.

All of this also depends on the military having their end compliant. http://www.laafb.af.mil/SMC/CZ/homepage/y2000/index.html

Also there is a set of 17 PPT slides to be seen here. http://www.spn.usace.army.mil/y2k/GPS-Y2k1/sld001.htm You will need to manually change the last two digits on the url to scroll through the presentation.

At the moment it looks like the GPS system is still at risk and hope is that it will be compliant in time.

-- Anonymous, October 25, 1998

Our GPS clocks are certified compliant and the vendor's test procedure has been provided so that we can duplicate the testing ourselves(which we plan to do). We only use this data to provide 1 milisecond time synchronization between substations for time stamping relay operations i.e event logging. Our time sync for our SCADA system comes from WWV. If there is still any doubt just unplug the antenna during rollover. The local clock won't drift enought to matter during this period. For us this issue is not that big of a deal.

-- Anonymous, October 26, 1998

I was under the impression that the major receiver manufacturers had already released software to correct this problem. At least that is what the telecommunications folks at the local utility told me.

-- Anonymous, October 26, 1998

I am an electronic engineer for a company that provides SCADA and DCS control systems to the power generation industry.

SCADA stands for System Control and Data Aquistion. DCS stands for Distributed Control System. These systems simply gather data from external sensors and/or controls, and may control various active devices based on this data. There is nothing "big brotherish" about these systems. They are NOT linked together in some sort of weird global network as you seem to refer to. They are stand alone devices dedicated to controlling their specific plant's operations.

I have never heard of GPS (Global Positioning) being a link to any sort of SCADA or DCS system used in the power generation industry. In some cases we do used the global atomic clock signal broadcast out of Fort Collins, CO to correct our time readouts, but this clock does not provide a Date.

Synchronization of the power grid is a matter of the speed of the prime movers driving the generators feeding the grid, and has nothing to do with real time clocks.

If someone could explain why in the world a positioning system would be used to control generator sets, I would be glad to hear it.

Jeff

-- Anonymous, October 28, 1998