I was sent by my municipality to a y2k information meeting that Southwestern Electric Power Company was holding. They said that about 25% of their embedded system work was done since they could not take the plants offline until after the summer heat. They told us about a central computer in Dallas/Ft. Worth area that receives about 8000 data inputs every 2 seconds. It communicates with 4 SCADA systems as well. They said there is a backup computer that receives the same inputs and can be instantly used to take over the first ones job if it crashes. They said that they are setting up a 3rd one that will be receiving and processing the same inputs, but with the date advanced forward exactly one year. It rolled over to the year 2000 on Jan. 1, 1999. I called our contact person with SWEPCO about the results so far. I have not had my call returned yet. My question is this, "Is that central computer running the show ie. monitoring output/load and controlling their section of the grid"? If it goes down, what could you do?

-- Anonymous, January 29, 1999