I am puzzled by the lack of information about this news story from a couple days ago. It seems like something of this magnitude would be reported from many sources. Is this a fake or what??????????

-- a mom (no@news.com), August 09, 1999

Answers

I was wondering the same thing. Are the lights back on?

-- Linda A. (adahi@muhlon.com), August 09, 1999.

Today, I spoke to a colleague who lives in the 'burbs north of London, and he said he hadn't heard a thing about it in the local press.

-- Hugh (hewiggins@mindspring.com), August 09, 1999.

There were two or three reports from reliable sources posted here. There were various reports on the number affected, up to four thousand, I think. This is from the Electronic Telegraph, a highly reputable newspaper:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000154642417163&rtmo=wseiAM0b&atmo =99999999&pg=/et/99/8/7/nbul07.html#go3

ISSUE 1534 Saturday 7 August 1999

Millennium bug move cuts power to 2,000

A MILLENNIUM bug precaution has left 2,000 London households without electricity. London Electricity is facing a compensation bill after plans to upgrade meter keys to make them year 2000 compliant backfired.

Key meters are used to allow customers to pay for electricity as they use it. The meter operates through a key that is charged at some 500 sites around London. London Electricity has changed the programming of the keys to enable them to cope with tariff changes after Jan 1 and avoid Millennium bug headaches but has been embarrassed by the failure rate. Emergency teams have been visiting households to restore supplies and cope with difficulties. Roland Gribben

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), August 09, 1999.

I think the reason you haven't heard too much about this is because it is really quite a small problem. London is a HUGE city and 4000 customers affected out of 11 million people is a real small percentage.

This "Y2K" problem has nothing to do generation, transmission or distribution of electricity. It would appear that this is a software problem, pure and simple - not a "let's roll the date ahead and see what happens at the power plant". An analogy would be that the card your office gives you to swipe to gain access to various parts of the building has not been "coded" properly and will not let you into the photocopy room, executive washroom etc....

The other reason that this wouldn't have got more media attention is that the people affected were most likely scattered throughout the poorer boroughs of London. People who have to buy their electricity in advance are usually credit risks (i.e. poor). When I lived in London (88-94) I didn't know anybody who had to get their electricity this way.

As a slightly off-topic digression, in the "old" days in Britain I believe that the electricity meters actually had to be fed with coins if you wanted to keep the lights on (perhaps Old Git can confirm this?). For all the Mr Bean fans out there, there is one episode which takes place in his apartment which has as its punch line an electric meter running out and the lights going out. I think it is the one where he buys a new TV and ends up taking off all his clothes in a bid to get better reception (you kinda have to see it to know what I mean!).

-- Johnny Canuck (j_canuck@hotmail.com), August 10, 1999.

Muuummmms the word!

-- mummmmstheword (Mummmmssstheword@mummmstheword.com), August 10, 1999.

++++++This "Y2K" problem has nothing to do generation, transmission or distribution of electricity. It would appear that this is a software problem, pure and simple - not a "let's roll the date ahead and see what happens at the power plant".+++++++

But, But, But....

Y2k is not a hardware problem!!!! It IS a software problem no mater where it happens and in whatever form. In the powerplant or the distribution(sp) keys.

-- justme (justme@justme.net), August 10, 1999.

One of the threads posted previously concerned a London Evenign Standard story:

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001Ca8

Johnny, the people quoted in this article are not exactly poor--a theater stage manager and a Body Shop sales advisor. Coin-operated gas and electric meters, as you describe, were often installed in rental property and modest homes so that people could more easily budget their money to pay for their power needs. My family wasn't anywhere near rich but we never had a coin-operated meter nor knew anyone who did, except for those in "bed-sitters" (efficiency apartments). Note that although the number actually without power was relatively small, the number of people who have those particular meters is reportedly 400,000 customers.

Here's the Standard story again.

Thousands of London Electricity's pre-paying customers have been left without hot water, light, or cooked food for days, as a plan to save them from the millennium bug goes "horribly wrong".

They dare not even sleep for fear they miss a knock at the door from an engineer coming to fix the problem with their Powerkey meters, because they have been warned that if they do it could be 24 hours before help arrives again.

A London Electricity spokeswoman admitted: "It's all gone horribly wrong in London, due to technical problems with a piece of equipment which occurred at the weekend."

Around 400,000 customers have been told to change their Powerkeys in order to keep their meters working when the new year begins. Unfortunately, a problem with the new keys corrupts the meters in 25 per cent of cases and the customer is left without power.

Theatre stage manager Charles Lloyd, who lives near Elephant and Castle, said: "We've got #1.46 left on the meter but when that goes we won't have any supply. For the time being we're not going to use the cooker or washing machine. I went to change the key so the meter could be adapted, but when I got home it did not give me any credit and it's corrupted now.

"We've been told it could be two, three or four days before anyone can get round to fix it. It's just mucking people about. It's a total cock up."

Grandmother Susan Ilyas was without power for 40 hours. It was eventually switched back on during a five-minute visit from an engineer.

Sales adviser for the Body Shop, Mrs Ilyas, who lives in Paddington Green, said: "I was told someone would be round in 24 hours but they weren't.

"I had no sleep waiting for someone, because I was told that if I missed them then it would be another 24 hours before they came round to fix it. I was too scared to go to bed. I have had to have time off work because I have been so tired.

"We had no hot water and weren't able to have baths or wash clothes. It takes ages to get through to the hotline number and when you do nobody seems to know what they are doing."

She also complained of rudeness by people on the hotline. She claimed that when she pointed out to an operator that people on ventilators or home dialysis need electricity to live, the voice on the other end of the line allegedly told her: "Well, they'll be dead then."

Father-of-three Paul Cavender, aged 37, is demanding compensation after being without power for 37 hours.

He said: "We couldn't even cook or have the hot water on. Everything we've got is electric. I reckon we've lost #200 in food that was frozen not to mention having to eat out, and buy candles and torches.

"London Electricity told everyone to go out and change their keys, so this is not a problem that has been sparked by the customer. It is entirely their fault."

The spokeswoman said London Electricity was doing its best to sort the problems out and that compensation would be available to aggrieved customers.

She said: "We have still got to work out the exact cause of the problem. Our guys are working till midnight in an effort to sort the problems out. I can only apologise if staff have been rude to customers, it has been stressful."

BTW, the term "cock-up," as used in the story, doesn't convey what it might in this country! It simply means a foul-up.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), August 10, 1999.

Justme

I take your point. What I was trying to say was that this problem was not related to embedded systems. The vast majority of discussion on this forum (and at EUY2K) about the electric utilities' vulnerability to Y2K has been centred on failures in embedded systems at the generation and transmission levels.

Old Git

The only 2 areas of London that the article specifically mentioned were Elephant & Castle and Paddington Green. Unless London has undergone a huge transformation since my last visit in 97, these 2 areas are not exactly "des res".

You are correct that most meters are installed in rental accommodation - partly this is so the landlord is not caught out of pocket if his tenant does a "runner" and partly because pre-payment meters do help people budget better.

-- Johnny Canuck (j_canuck@hotmail.com), August 10, 1999.

Let's not wander off into whether the problem is embedded systems or not and which are desirable and undesirable residental areas of London--let's look at the salient facts:

1. The London Electricity Board confirmed the problems were directly caused by a Y2K upgrade.

2. The problems caused a loss of electricity to between two and four thousand people.

3. According to the London Electricity Board, the number of meters across London with this problem is 400,000. Only about one percent experienced problems because they were the first to see their electricity credit run out.

4. This particular problem was solved within about three or four days and, by happy coincidence, at a time when the weather was warm.

Let us hope ALL Y2K-related problems cause no more disruptions than those described in news articles.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), August 10, 1999.

Old Git

Interestingly enough, the article doesn't make it really clear if the root of the problem has been found and corrected:

"We have still got to work out the exact cause of the problem. Our guys are working till midnight in an effort to sort the problems out..."

I couldn't really tell if the problem was with the data that was put onto the meter cards or the internal software in the meters or a combination of both. I also found it strange that that only 25% of meters were corupted. Does this mean that some meters have different software than other meters?

-- Johnny Canuck (j_canuck@hotmail.com), August 10, 1999.

Johnny, I'm sorry I don't have time to do research right now but if you plug in "London AND Electricity AND Board" into, say Alta Vista, then you'll come up with the company's site and you can ask LEB directly. If you can't get the site URL, someone posted it--look in the archives under "Utilities" and Find "London" and you can look at the various threads and track down the URL that way.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), August 10, 1999.

On the This is London website http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/ there are two stories released on the same day 1999/08/05. One claims 100,000 powerless and starts out "Thousands" (which fits with the 1/4 of 400,000 affected) and the other starts out "Hundreds." Is this sanatization at work?

-- spider (spider0@usa.net), August 11, 1999.