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28 ELECTRIC UTILITIES FAULTED ON Y2K READINESS; GRID TEST SET

The Energy Department is concerned that 12 electric utilities are not ready for Y2K, the NEW YORK TIMES is reporting Wednesday editions.

"Another 16 utilities, all municipal or rural cooperatives, have not reported on their state of readiness, and dozens of others are not ready but have convinced the North American Electric Reliability Council, which coordinates planning for power plants and power lines, that they have only limited problems to fix," the paper reports.

The news comes just as the electric utility industry was set to begin a large-scale Y2K grid-test Wednesday night and Thursday in preparation for New Year's Eve.

The tests run from 7 p.m. to 4 a.m.

On September 8, electric utility power plants across the country will prepare for and closely monitor the date rollover at midnight. 9/9/99 is a key date for Y2K testing because computer users have used nines to mean end of input, which could shut down computers programs on this date. The drill is intended to simulate as realistically as possible the exercise of operation, communications, administrative and contingency plans for the Y2K transition.

U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson will participate in the grid-test from the Department of Energy's Bonneville Power Administration in Vancouver, Washington. BPA owns and operates one of the nation's biggest high-voltage transmission grids. About 15,000 circuit miles of transmission line network across 300,000 square miles in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and sections of Wyoming, Nevada, Utah and California.

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-- I was never here (I never@posted.this), September 08, 1999

Answers

This is a pointless waste of time unless you work for the power industry and you want to keep the masses calm and complacent. Nothing is going to happen with the 9/9/99 date, and when nothing happens, the utilities can crow about their "success" in managing it. Problem is managing Nothing is worth nothing.

Unfortunately, Peter Jennings and Dan Blather will report the "good news' on the electrical power grid question and Joe Public will go back to sleep regarding Y2K. Awareness that could have saved lives will be missed.

-- cody (cody@y2ksurvive.com), September 08, 1999.

The only problem is that this is a contigency plan test. This is to see if the power companies can operate if the phone system goes down. This in no way tests the power grid, the safty systems or anything else for that matter. These people will be sitting around with cell phones or sat. phones and pretending that the date has rolled over. I can do that all day long. I doesn't get any work done. It doesn't solve anything and this plan should have been in place anyway regardless of y2k.

-- dragoneyez (dragoneyez@mindspring.com), September 08, 1999.

Its not like Drudge to get it wrong. Dragoneyez, you said it better that I, and you have it exactly right.

-- semper paratus (lets_test-nothing@report.succes), September 08, 1999.