Re: Y2K problems at a Nuke Plant?

[Julie_F_Shafer@fpl.com]

I found the following article:

at:
http://www.euy2k.com/newsroom.htm

Pa. Nuclear Plant Loses Monitoring System Computers During Y2k Testing

Rockville, Md. (February 26) - PECO Energy's Peach Bottom Unit 2 nuclear
facility near York, Pa. recently experienced a 7 hour lockup of the plant's
primary and backup plant monitoring system computers during Y2k testing. The NRC
weekly summary of 2/12/1999 reports that operators lost the plant's Safety
Parameter Display System (SPDS), Emergency Response Data System (ERDS), and 3D
Monicore thermal limit monitoring system during the event.

Engineers had taken the backup PMS computer off-line and had advanced the PMS
clock to a year 2000 Date. This led to a lockup of the backup PMS, and the
system transferred to the primary, on-line PMS computer. The engineers did not
recognize that the system had transferred and, believing that the original
command was not accepted, again advanced the system clock, causing the primary
PMS to lock up also. Several initial attempts to restore the PMS computers were
unsuccessful, and operators determined that this constituted a major loss of
emergency assessment capability. The PMS computers are not Y2K compliant, but
the engineers believed that this would not impact the testing. Operators did not
expect the testing would affect the on-line PMS computer. PECO Energy plans to
perform a full root cause analysis of this event.

Julie Shafer


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