First, from Southern Company:

Link

Southern Company, Georgia Power Testing Raises Year 2000 Confidence
11:49 a.m. Apr 05, 1999 Eastern

ATLANTA, April 5 /PRNewswire/ -- At several Southern Company power plants, including Georgia Power facilities, the year 2000 has already arrived and plant operations are continuing normally. As part of its year 2000 testing, Southern Company and Georgia Power have moved forward the computer clocks on generating plant controls to test their rollover from 1999 to 2000. The testing is being done to validate the inventory, assessment, remediation work and initial testing that has already been accomplished at the power plants by Southern Company's Millennium Project, which is addressing the year 2000 computer challenge across the company.

"Our comprehensive program includes setting clocks forward and allowing the devices to roll through key transition dates," said Paul DeNicola, President and CEO of Southern Company Services and the year 2000 steering committee chair for Southern Company. "We currently have some systems operating in the year 2000, and we have not experienced problems that would interrupt service."

Southern Company has 275 generating units located at 67 plant sites across its service territory in the Southeast. The Millennium Project team selected approximately 10 percent of these units, which represent the major control systems in service, to be tested by rolling computer clocks forward. The tests are being performed during regularly scheduled maintenance periods, so that the generating units will be ready to produce electricity during the summer load requirements.

Of the 25 generating units in Southern Company's year 2000 test group, 20 units are already operating in the year 2000. This includes large units at two plants operated by Southern Company subsidiary Georgia Power: Unit I of Plant Wansley, with a generating capacity of 865 megawatts, and Unit 4 of Plant Bowen, which has a generating capacity of 880 megawatts.

Once power is generated, Southern Company delivers power to its customers through more than 26,000 miles of transmission and distribution (T&D) lines. To test these lines and other T&D assets, the company is integrating devices that have already completed extensive year 2000 testing procedures.

"The T&D tests that we performed have provided valuable information," said Wayne Dahlke, senior vice president of power delivery at Georgia Power. "Based on current tests, we are confident in our ability to continue our reliable delivery of power to customers through the transition to the year 2000 and beyond."

In addition to preparing its own assets for the year 2000, Southern Company and Georgia Power are participating with the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) and other utilities to maintain the stability of the nation's integrated electric network, the power grid.

"Southern Company is on target to meet the June 30, 1999, readiness date as established by NERC," said Mike McClure, the company's Millennium Project Executive. "We are working with critical suppliers to determine their readiness to supply products and services during the year 2000 transition. Southern Company is also building on existing contingency plans to anticipate and respond to potential year 2000 challenges."

Southern Company began addressing the year 2000 challenge in 1996 and the company is investing approximately $90 million during the four years of its Millennium Project. Southern Company's commitment to preparing for the year 2000 begins with senior management and includes the teamwork of hundreds of business experts throughout the company. More information on Southern Company and its Millennium Project can be found on the company's web site, www.southernco.com .

Georgia Power is the largest subsidiary of Southern Company, the nation's largest generator of electricity. The company is an investor-owned, tax-paying utility, serving customers in 57,000 of the states 59,000 square miles. Georgia Power's rates are more than 20 percent below the national average, and its 1.8 million customers are in all but six of Georgia's 159 counties.

Southern Company (NYSE: SO), is an international energy company with $35 billion in assets through regional utilities and operations around the world. It is the largest producer of electricity in the United States and one of the world's largest independent power producers. Based in Atlanta, Southern Company is the parent firm of Alabama Power, Georgia Power, Gulf Power, Mississippi Power and Savannah Electric. Through its Southern Energy Inc. subsidiary, Southern Company supplies electricity in 10 countries on four continents. It also provides energy-related marketing, trading and technical services and Southern LINC wireless telecommunications. SOURCE Georgia Power

Next, from PacifiCorp:

Link

PacifiCorp Plants Producing Year 2000 Electricity
02:34 p.m Apr 05, 1999 Eastern

SALT LAKE CITY, April 5 /PRNewswire/ -- PacifiCorp (NYSE: PPW) has announced that its electric utilities Pacific Power and Utah Power are advancing the control system clocks ahead and operating all its thermal generating units in the Year 2000 from now until the end of the first quarter of the year 2000. The same is taking place in its transmission and distribution systems and is one of the final steps to having all critical systems ready for the Year 2000 by July 1, 1999.

"These are the systems that affect all stages of electric production from generation to delivery at the point of service for each of our customers," said David Register, Year 2000 project manager, PacifiCorp. "Making the transition now will help our customers and the public to have the same confidence we have about the extent and reliability of our preparations."

Register explained the plants have already gone through months of inventory, assessment, remediation and testing and all have operated successfully during critical date rollover tests.

"More than 25 percent of our thermal generation units are already operating and producing power dated in the year 2000," said Bob Augenstein, generation Y2K project manager. "Our commitment to be ready for Y2K is now nearing reality."

Augenstein went on to say the critical systems clocks at all these facilities have been tested through a multitude of troublesome dates associated with Year 2000 and the equipment has passed each test. The formal program of setting the dating systems and clocks ahead and leaving them ahead began early in March and will continue through June. Each unit will have the date advanced while it is off line for regular maintenance or during off-peak hours this spring. Next year, the clocks will be reset to the correct calendar date.

According to Register, dates are being advanced in the transmission and distribution systems this spring as well.

"This move is just one more step to ensuring reliable electrical service for our customers," Register emphasized. "We want our customers to know we are making every reasonable effort to provide them with the best possible service. We expect to be conducting business as usual Jan. 1, 2000, and beyond."

PacifiCorp began its Y2K preparations in 1996. During the past two and one-half years it has conducted a comprehensive, systematic program to prepare for the Year 2000 and has dedicated significant resources and manpower to the effort. It also recognized that the Y2K problem is a business issue rather than a purely technological one. Accordingly, it looked at all its business processes as well as its methods of transacting business with others.

PacifiCorp serves 1.5 million electricity customers in Oregon, Utah, Wyoming, Washington, Idaho and California. It has one of the most extensive transmission systems in the U.S. and owns 8,400 megawatts of low-cost thermal and hydroelectric generation. PacifiCorp also serves 550,000 electricity customers in the Australian states of Victoria and New South Wales. SOURCE PacifiCorp

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-dejanews.com), April 06, 1999

Answers

I wonder how setting the system clock ahead tests the embedded controllers that do mainly interval timing and have "come up" with the clock set at the "epoch date" (usually the date of manufacture).

-- Ivan (ivan1776@aol.com), April 06, 1999.

Hummm, very interesting stuff. Thanks Hoffmeister.

I just wonder if all this simulated real-time testing actually includes all the individual clocks in their essentially stand-alone embedded microsystems.

Perhaps only time will tell.

-- Yan (no@no.no), April 06, 1999.

Interval timing done using a defective realtime clock will be a one- off glitch, ie something unexpected will happen when it subtracts a date prior to what it thinks is 1/1/2000 from one after. After the clock has fully wrapped or advanced (whichever happens), it's most unlikely that any interval arithmetic will be left failing.

Unless the consequences of such a glitch propagate disastrously (ie to major damage or destruction to plant), the worst that'll be needed is a restart to fix things. Of course, such a glitch occurring simultaneously in a lot of plants will have very noticeable consequences.

The EPRI reported on such a case quite a while ago: a power station was Y2K tested after an overhaul, and a glitch such as the above occurred. The powerstation was AOK when re-restarted in "2000".

-- Nigel Arnot (nra@maxwell.ph.kcl.ac.uk), April 07, 1999.

Good - but again, both of you pointed out that there may remain undiscovered problems, but these are two good signs.

Again, notice that the plants now set ahead were "already remediated, ...tested, ..." and that the company as a whole began in 1996. As usual, this is another example that the Year 2000 problem can be fixed, can be tested, can be resolved if the problem is attacked aggressively, if enough money is spent on it early enough, if the right problems are resolved, and if remediation is finished early enough to allow testing to begin early enough.

Notice that testing (set-ahead testing) is not complete yet, and again, nobdy - at any company, at any utility, at any agency world-wide, who has spent money remediating year 2000 issues, has said it was a waste of money. And no utility, agency, or company world-wide has yet dared to try a an integrated set-ahead test without finishing its remediaiton and component-testing.

They must be finding "something" in this Y2K business that's real. So, what about the companies, businesses, and agencies NOT on schedule.

-- Robert A Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (Cook.R@csaatl.com), April 08, 1999.