This from euy2k.com (great site to bookmark for powergrid news)

Survey Indicates Electric Utilities Believ They'll be Y2k Ready

Sherman Oaks, Ca. (August 26) - Electric utility system engineers and consultants working to find a cure for the Y2k "Millenium Bug" indicate their companies will be ready by the Year 2000. That's according to a 'blind survey' from industry representatives attending Information Forecast, Inc.'s "Year 2000 for Electric Utilities: Remediation and Contingency Planning for Y2k Problems" conference held August 10-11, 1998.

Currently, only 1 percent of the company representatives polled report they have completed testing and have "fixed" all anticipated problems. While only 19 percent say they'll have all "critical systems" finished and certified compliant by December 31, 1998, the vast majority - 99 percent-believe their critical systems will be fully compliant by December 31, 1999.

The survey, conducted to assess the Y2k readiness of the electric utility industry, shows that nearly 87 percent of responding utilities have a formalized Y2k program. While at least 20 percent of the surveyed companies have more than 50 employees dedicated to remediation efforts, nearly 50 percent say their companies have "less than 5" employees working full-time to resolve any possible problems. Nearly two-thirds of the 78 polled company representatives were from full service electric utilities, with the remainder from rural electric co-ops, municipal agencies, support organizations, power pools or independent power producers."

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

My personal feeling is that I wouldn't buy a $1 lotterie ticket on those odds.

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), October 16, 1998

Answers

Reports like these always leave me completely confused. How many utilites were polled (not clear -- either 78 polled, or 78 responders, or both). How many failed to respond (doesn't say). Do the numbers presented represent percentage of those who responded (most likely) or percentage of those polled, including non-responses (it isn't clear). Of those who are still working on this, where do they stand now? Was this a national, regional or local poll? How much of the (national, regional or local) power generation to the responders represent?

I know that there are over 7,000 power companies in the US, and only about 700 of them generate power at all. Of those 700, about 70 generate 75% of the total. Many of the small, non-generating category don't even employ more than 5 people, and their remediation efforts are pretty much limited to their PC spreadsheets and accounting packages. Are responders in this category skewing the apparent results? How can we find out?

Rick Cowles has said that integrated testing is *still* not production testing; the only possible fullscale test will happen when 00 rolls around. I need to ask him if the focus is still on the billing systems, or shifted to embeddeds. So many questions.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), October 16, 1998.

Flint,

"Reports like these always leave me completely confused. How many utilites were polled (not clear -- either 78 polled, or 78 responders, or both). How many failed to respond (doesn't say). Do the numbers presented represent percentage of those who responded (most likely) or percentage of those polled, including non-responses(it isn't clear). Of those who are still working on this, where do they stand now? Was this a national, regional or local poll? How much of the (national, regional or local) power generation to the responders represent? "

Glad to see I am not the only one flustrated by these sort of poll results. Not enough qualifying info.

Rick

-- Rick Tansun (ricktansun@hotmail.com), October 16, 1998.