Four or five people on the various forums I frequent have mentioned that they have (since the rollover) noticed power fluctuation in their homes and business'. On person from Canada said that the power will dip down just low enough to re-set the microwave to the "power out" sign (over and over) but the power does not go completely off. Another person from South Dakota said he used a voltage meter to check his power and found it fluctuating far beyond normal. And a third talked about the light bulbs in her home and area stores dimming and brightening. Here's my question. Is there something different about the set up being used on the grid since the rollover? Is it running on manual in places perhaps? We know that the rollover weekend produced three Nukes that needed to be taken off line (not to say it was Y2K related); and since then, I have read posts on this forum that mention 5, 8 and 12 power plants being shut down. What do you guys think is going on here?

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2000

Answers

sounds like moths are getting into the light bulbs again, Meg.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2000

Voltage problems/fluctuations that people may be experiencing in their homes are very likely problems on the distribution (lower voltage) systems, not on the transmission grid, and certainly not Y2K related. I work in the control center for a major U.S. utility and am not aware of any significant abnormal operations on the grid this week. Re: plants being shut down, we ALWAYS have some plants down for various reasons. I have seen no information that suggests that there are more plants out of action now than there were last month, last year, etc., etc.

People experiencing such problems should call their local electric distribution utility.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2000

Someone posted a while back about talking with a lineman about maintenance. Was it Marianne? Anyway, it seems that due to deregulation and other cost cutting measures that some routine maintenace in the distribution system is not getting the attention it used to. Things like that could cause some problems, unrelated to Y2k.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2000