http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/local/state/west_virginia/story.html?s=v/rs/19991207/wv/index_1.html#1

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Allegheny Power Says It's Y2K Compliant - (CHARLESTON) -- One of West Virginia's largest power companies says it's as ready as it will ever be for Y-two-K. Allegheny Power Company says its mission critical systems have been Y-two-K compliant since July. Company spokesman Alan Staggers says mission critical means those systems dealing with the delivery of electricity to customers. Although he says they don't anticipate trouble, he admits it's not a guarantee just like any other night of the year. Staggers cautions customers not to panic if the power goes off on New Years Eve and not to automatically assume it's a problem related to Y-two-K. Allegheny plans to have work crews fully staffed that night.

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), December 07, 1999

Answers

http://www.bouldernews.com/extra/y2k/07cpubs.html

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Public Service says it's ready for Y2K despite criticism

Ex-compliance director says utility balked at spending money for important work

Associated Press

DENVER  The former director of Y2K compliance at the Public Service Co. of Colorado says the state's largest utility could have prepared better for the transition to the year 2000.

However, the man who now heads the Y2K program at PSC takes issue with the criticism and says the utility is ready to keep producing electricity for its customers when the next millennium arrives.

Will James, a member of the Governor's Task Force on Year 2000 Readiness who left PSC this year and now runs his own Y2K consulting firm, said the utility's preparation fell short because it balked at spending extra money to do work he considered important.

But Bob Ray, now the Y2K program manager at New Century Energies, the parent company of Public Service, says PSC has spent $34 million on Y2K readiness and has been prepared for months.

"We were Y2K ready to produce electricity at the end of June," Ray said.

James lays some blame on the state for failing to fund an independent Y2K-readiness audit and verification program for Colorado's utilities including PSC, whose power plants serve 70 percent of Colorado's population.

"Without a state-sponsored independent audit and detailed examination of the readiness of these organizations, a guarantee of Y2K readiness in the energy sector cannot be made at this time," he wrote in a report to the governor's task force last month.

"I may be all wet on this," said James, who left the utility this year voluntarily, in part because he thought it was not going far enough to address Y2K issues.

"Everything may be just fine Dec. 31. But if things do go wrong, I think people should know what happened. We tried to do the right thing for the families and businesses of Colorado," he said of the governor's task force. "But what started out as an 'all-for-one' type of approach has ended as an every man and industry for himself situation."

The state's Y2K task force was founded by former Gov. Roy Romer in July 1998. James was co-chairman of the task force then and remained a member after Gov. Bill Owens took office in January.

The task force asked for $1.5 million last year to pay for an independent Y2K audit program, but the money never materialized, leaving companies on their own to conduct audits.

PSC was not selected in a random draw for a U.S. Energy Department program that provided free Y2K audits, Ray said, so he hired the same private firm that conducted those audits to look at PSC. He said the paid audit is just as credible as one provided free would have been.

The audit report released last month by the San Jose, Calif.-based COMS gave PSC a "Risk Level 3" rating, which is the best on the scale of one to three used for the Energy Department-supported audits and indicates the company is ready for Y2K.

Y2K fears involve computer systems that were not programmed to recognize a new century and might create problems by treating the year 2000 as 1900 instead.

In addition to the audit issue, James has doubts about PSC's power plants in Colorado. At each plant, the company has set a system that Ray called "the brain of the power plant" to run in the future, meaning that there will be no transition when clocks strike 12:01 a.m. on Jan 1.

But while those systems will not be affected because their clocks, essentially, have already been set forward, James has expressed concern because some of the other systems and equipment at the power plants are still running on regular time.

Ray stressed that the embedded chips in those components have been tested and either fixed or, in a little less than 3 percent of cases, replaced to make them Y2K compliant.

Still, James says more systemwide testing is needed. And if Y2K-related problems do occur, job cuts will leave fewer skilled workers to deal with them, he says.

Ray said extra employees will be on hand on New Year's Eve and the following day to fix problems that could occur if there are embedded chips in the system that are still not Y2K compliant.

"If something is missed, we have 300 extra people out in the field and we'll either fix it or bypass it and run it manually," he said.

Ray said that like other groups advising the public on how to approach the turn of the century, he suggests people should prepare themselves as they would for a bad snowstorm.

December 7, 1999

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), December 07, 1999.

It's funny two great, important articles and just three posts. People, even on this forum, like the ying and yang of a Decker/Y2K Pro B.S. session better than hard news. Why AREN'T people interested in this Y2K thing? All is well. No controversy to ENTERTAIN the masses about the outcome except among Y2K kooks like us

-- PJC (paulchri@msn.com), December 07, 1999.

Good articles, thanks. Alan Staggers' quotes were refreshing. I just wish that more electric utilities had been communicating like he is.

-- snooze button (alarmclock_2000@yahoo.com), December 08, 1999.