A review of financial filings conducted by Proma Creative Solutions Ltd. reveals that, with 400 days remaining until the year 2000, only 23% of critical systems of the top 70 "Fortune 1000" listed electricity companies have been tested and certified as Y2K compliant. . . .

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All the worshipers of the NERC will apostacize when the lights go out. http://actor.actcom.co.il:8080/ows-wis/pr21.htm

Paul Milne If you live within five miles of a 7-11, you're toast.

-- Paul Milne (fedinfo@halifax.com), January 22, 1999

Answers

I would like to know, who does the testing? The people who "fixed it" or an independent agency paid by someone else to give us an unbiased evaluation?

Com Ed has said they will not test when they finish in October, because it is to difficult to do. Lights out Chicago.

-- Bill (y2khippo@yahoo.com), January 22, 1999.

Bill,

I live in the Chicago Metropolitan Area and would just like to say, last summer Com Ed promised rolling blackouts during peak hours. They couldn't handle it without Y2K. Time to sell my stock?

Deborah

-- Deborah the Prophetess (dark@night.com), January 22, 1999.

No Deb, Time to sell the house.

Greybear

- Got candles?

-- Greybear (greybear@home.com), January 22, 1999.

Well if you go back to the home page from that review - you can get to a bunch of reports.

http://www.2000amisafe.com/wis/frame_electricity

Looked over several of them - most tell how much they have done in which catagory and time expected to completion - the allowed times mostly seem pretty reasonable.

And, to look at it from the other side - you have claimed from the first post of yours that I have read that they all started late - many in late 97 - early 98. If so - then 23% certified, tested, and compliant is GREAT NEWS - since they work on all phases at once, not one at a time. So if they are done with 23%, then another 25% should be (have been - note that this all refers back to Nov 1) in or near final stages - and the remaining half would be about halfway to completion. And if they have done all that in a year or less - 400 days is plenty of time. All depends on how you 'spin' it.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), January 22, 1999.

Greybear,

Hubby won't sell. I'm kind of freaking out. Praying God will direct him. Got candles. Got KIDS.

Midwestern Milk toast,

Deborah

-- Deborah the Prophetess (freaking@out.com), January 22, 1999.

er, Paul D., you know very well that not all processes can be accomplished simultaneously, (and in fact a number of them can't be tested AT ALL unless the plant is taken off line first). This indicates that they *cannot* be that prepared. So why bother with that particular spin.

FYI: the local DC utility (PEPCO)has already announced plans to take each of their plants off line for *two weeks* for y2k testing starting late this spring...and no that isn't on any website that I've seen. I know enough about what's going on locally to believe that they know what they're talking about...so I'll believe any other utility is ready once they've also done the same off line testing routine.

just my 2 cents' worth, Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), January 22, 1999.

"FYI: the local DC utility (PEPCO)has already announced plans to take each of their plants off line for *two weeks* for y2k testing starting late this spring..."

This is incredible news, if true. It would be nice to "only" have to worry about chemical, nuclear, biological or financial meltdown again, here in scenic Dee Cee. Is there any public info on this? I could use a "fix" of good news, ESPECIALLY about electricity.

...and yes Paul, even though that 7-11 2 miles from home means I'm going to have a "final real-bad hair-day", I'm stocking up on beans & rice tonight to fill my buckets...

-- Anonymous99 (Anonymous99@anonymous.com), January 22, 1999.

Testing a plant offline isn't a problem provided there's sufficient capacity elsewhere to keep customers happy. Spring or Autumn are the easy times to do this in the USA: little demand for either heating or airconditioning, so much surplus capacity. It's nowhere near a full power grid system test, but if these limited tests go well it's cause for a little optimism. Of course, if they can't get the plants to work at all :-(

Wish they'd done this a year ago, though!

-- Nigel Arnot (nra@maxwell.ph.kcl.ac.uk), January 22, 1999.

Nigel -

This seems to support an "April-June" Y2K news build-up. Power companies will likely have to make their off-line tests during that period in order to have time later (Autumn) to re-test (if they're lucky). Reports will thus filter out at this point, reinforced by news from FY roll-overs in April and June. Nothing headline-making, of course, just greatly increased rumblings about "more and more computer problems..."

130 days until June 1, 1999.

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.com), January 22, 1999.

Maybe this snippet will make you feel better

----------------------------------------------------- TVA has been working on Year 2000 preparations since April 1996. TVA is tracking progress on 20,138 mission-critical items. As of January 4,1999, 79 percent of those items (or 15,838) have been completed. We began integrated power system testing this fall and will continue that process through the spring of 1999. -----------------------------------------------------

http://www.tva.com/y2k/progress.htm

If you look at the most recent news things don't sound that bad.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), January 22, 1999.

Anonymous -

yeah it's true...the best way I can think of to find out for yourself is simply to *ask* them...just make certain NOT to mention y2k prior to asking or you will get a canned response in lawyer-smarm...I still wouldn't stay around here if I were you - I plan to be gone by August at the latest...

Arlin

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), January 22, 1999.

You don't have to finish finding problems to begin remediation. You can start with the first problem you find. You don't have to fix everything to begin testing. You don't have to test all the systems to start putting the first tested ones in to production. So yes, you can have a place with systems in all stages of correction.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), January 23, 1999.