Utility Surpasses Critical Milestone at 80% Readiness

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From: Jon C. Arnold
To: EEI Public Information List for Y2K Information
Subject: Southern California Edison Ahead of Millennium Bug in Getting'Y2K Ready'
Date: Sunday, April 04, 1999 8:47 PM

SCE Ahead of Millennium Bug in Getting 'Y2K Ready'

Utility Surpasses Critical Milestone at 80% Readiness; Expects Completion By July

ROSEMEAD, Calif., March 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Southern California Edison (SCE) has got a head start on taking the bite out of the so-called Y2K ``millennium bug.''

``We're proud to announce that we're more than 80 percent complete with the Y2K readiness program for our utility mission-critical systems,'' said Mahvash Yazdi, SCE's vice president and chief information officer. ``While no one can make guarantees, we believe we'll meet our goal of having these systems completely ready by July 1999.''

The San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station's portion of the massive SCE project likewise has reached the 80% completion milestone, she noted, with total mission-critical readiness expected by midsummer.

The much-publicized millennium bug results from older computers and software programs that were designed with only two spaces to record years. Many fear that without the proper year recognition, many computers and programs are likely to interpret next year -- ``00'' -- as 1900 instead of 2000. This ``system bug'' could lead to failures, large and small, if left unaddressed.

For SCE, ``Y2K ready'' means equipment has been determined suitable for continued use through 2028, or through the last year of its anticipated useful life, explained Eric Trapp, SCE's Y2K manager. ``Mission critical'' systems are those that are essential to service reliability, public and employee safety, regulatory compliance, and billing and revenue.

SCE has made the readiness effort a priority, committing substantial financial and staffing resources -- up to 500 full- and part-time employees and contractors, supported by a $72-million budget.

SCE's Y2K effort has placed special focus on embedded processors -- non-computer devices with computer chips that control functions by date -- simply because they are pervasive and sometimes hard to find.

``We have found that our critical electricity delivery systems include a relatively small number of unique types of embedded processors that use date- coding,'' Trapp said. ``This has made the job of locating possible problems much easier for us. Also, a number of the critical devices do not have embedded processors, and many others will successfully operate through the millennium change without reprogramming.''

This year, in addition to completing work on the utility's mission- critical systems, Trapp said SCE will focus on contingency planning; ensuring that Y2K-ready systems remain free of non-ready hardware or software; and preparing non-critical systems for Y2K.

Contingency planning considers the external systems that the utility depends upon to maintain reliability. SCE's contingency plans will be tested as part of national Y2K contingency plan testing later this year conducted by the North American Electric Reliability Council, an organization that helps maintain regional electric service reliability.

While SCE does not anticipate significant problems on New Year's Day 2000, Trapp said the utility ``always has contingency plans in place in order to recover from weather or other disasters. We are adjusting these existing plans, for as many possibilities as we can, to the Y2K situation.''

SCE's preparedness effort includes working with major customers and many other entities that supply energy to the SCE system or share its facilities, applying information-sharing arrangements where practical.

``Customer satisfaction and service reliability are joined at the hip in terms of priority and importance,'' Trapp said. ``SCE is proud of its solid reliability and safety record. That's why we will continue to apply our traditional standards of preparedness to the year 2000 issue as we have for all utility operations for over a hundred years.''

An Edison International company, Southern California Edison is the nation's second largest investor-owned electric utility, serving more than 11 million people in a 50,000-square-mile area within central, coastal and Southern California.

SOURCE: Southern California Edison
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[/snip] -numbers schmumbers?

~C~

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