Document Management: Ending the paper chase

摘要

The first formal filing of electronically compiled and managed documents with an energy regulatory agency occurred this past Dec 1 when a single compact disk was delivered to the offices of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in Washington, DC. The disk contained the quarterly power cost adjustment documentation for Granite State Transmission Inc, a subsidiary of Bay State Gas Co, Westborough, Mass. Technology gurus will note that the data were delivered via "sneaker-net"— that is, by a disk carried from one location to another, rather than by electronic exchange via the Internet. But electronic transmission will come soon enough. The most notable feature of this exchange is that it was between a natural-gas distribution company and FERC, and not between a utility's nuclear plant division and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).