Utilities Say They're Y2K Ready, Though Blackouts Expected

Bloomberg News
Wednesday, June 30 1999 08:01 PM EDT

Washington, June 30 (Bloomberg) -- Most U.S. utilities said today that their power plants and transmission lines are ``Y2K ready,'' though experts still expect some power failures when the New Year comes.

Utilities were asked to report their level of ``readiness'' to the North American Electric Reliability Council today. While a full report on the results won't be ready until July 29, dozens of utilities declared their success at finding and eliminating the Millennium bug.

Electric utilities spent billions of dollars over the past several years to prepare for the day when aging computer and analog systems can't determine whether the digits ``00'' represent the year 1900 or 2000. They've been upgrading and testing components of power plants and distribution systems, and setting up contingency plans in case of failures.

``Utilities are scared,'' said Cameron Daley, chief operating officer of Framingham, Massachusetts-based Tava/R.W. Beck, which tested and upgraded systems for more than 100 U.S. utilities. ``The whole grid won't collapse, but there will be outages that could last up to several weeks.''

While no utility has guaranteed there won't be blackouts Jan. 1, industry groups said utilities are doing everything they can to prevent problems, including preparing for the worst.

``We believe Y2K won't be a problem,'' said Eugene Gorzelnik, a spokesman for the council. ``There will be a huge backlash if a utility reports it's Y2K ready, and it turns out that it wasn't.''

Edison International's Southern California Edison utility, which has spent $72 million on Y2K preparation, said it plans to dispatch an extra 500 employees on New Year's Eve. Wisconsin Energy Corp.'s Wisconsin Electric Power Co. plans to have as much as 50 percent more electricity available than it normally needs at that time of year.

Still, deregulation has pushed utilities to cut labor and other costs, and those that are deepest in negotiations with regulators haven't been as focused on preventing problems related to the millennium bug, Daley said.

``The utilities most distracted by deregulation aren't doing enough to identify and prevent problems,'' Daley said. ``There are a number of instances where utilities didn't go deep enough into their systems -- they accepted vendors' words that parts of a system were compliant.''

Even if a utility corrects all the problems in its own system, power still may be cut off to their customers. That's because U.S. and Canadian power lines connect all utilities, and when one utility system breaks down, it could cause problems for others.

``We cannot provide warranties (against blackouts) because our readiness depends in part on other parties,'' said Samuel Manno, director of Niagara Mohawk Power Corp.'s Y2K project.

At the trade council's suggestion, utilities agreed to conduct the first major test of the entire power systems' ability to properly recognize dates beyond 1999 on September 9.

``We hope to learn what still needs to be done at that point and correct any glitches before they happen,'' Gorzelnik said.

(c) 1999 Bloomberg News

-- (how@many.weeks), July 07, 1999

Answers

Yep.

California... with it's new form of electricity company deregulation, and transmission & generation sell-offs could turn out to be an "interesting" Y2K-test bed.

No guarantees... from PG&E either. I count on Intel, and the rest of the Silicon Valley et.al. to push them... real hard.

And my S.V. "heavy metal" Group Pres. neighbor, in charge of Y2K at his corporation, says we WILL have some blackouts and brownouts.

*Sigh*

Got flashlights?

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), July 07, 1999.

To the top with this one!

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), July 07, 1999.

AND ONE MORE TIME, TO ALL THEY POLLYS.....IF THERE IS NO PROBLEM, WHY ARE THE TOP EXECUTIVES AT FLORIDA POWER BUYING AND HAVING FPL PERSONNEL INSTALL GENERATORS IN THEIR LARGE UPSCALE HOMES??? TO THIS DAY, FROM THE DAY THE ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED, NONE, I REPEAT 'NONE' OF THE POLLYS HAVE ANSWERED THIS QUESTION. Sorry I shouted, but maybe the pollys are hard of hearing. Be prepared. Very prepared. John

-- John Galt (jgaltfla@hotmail.com), July 07, 1999.

John Galt,

Do you have a link to that?

-- mabel (mabel_louise@yahoo.com), July 07, 1999.

Let me see if I can dig it up. I posted it here ages ago, but due to lack of "Pro" replies other than the usual "nah-na-nah-na" childish b.s. repsonses, I quit linking it...
John

-- John Galt (jgaltfla@hotmail.com), July 07, 1999.

John, when you do find that link, could you re-post it under it's own heading with the new questions. It deserves it's own thread.

Thanks!

-- OR (orwelliator@biosys.net), July 08, 1999.