I've heard there are manual overrides for all of the Electric Utility power systems on the power grid. True or false?

-- Anonymous, January 22, 1999

Answers

Joe,

This topic has been discussed quite a few times on this forum. Use the search engine, and you'll find some very enlightening discussion of this topic.

Basically, the issue boils down to two things:

1. There's not as much "manual control" anymore as some would have you believe. Granted, there are some manual overrides, but many of the manual overrides have been removed or disabled over time, primarily because of the perceived "redundancy" in modern day electric distribution systems.

2. It would take mass quantities of skilled workers to work all of these manual controls at the same time. The electric industry has cut it's workforce dramatically over the past 5 or 10 years, in the name of competition and deregulation. So the corporate "history" isn't there anymore, the old-timers who could operate the system off the top of their heads rather than manuals and several layers of supervisory approval.

Where were these cuts made up, from an operational standpoint? A single word - automation. And what's automation made up of? Embedded controls. And what's the concern with embedded controls? Y2k.

Hope this helps!

-- Anonymous, January 23, 1999