'Co-op's, regulators, & manual options
asked in the Electric Utilities and Y2K Q&A Forum
Our local, rural co-op's foreman stopped by our farm today for an unrelated reason. I asked him
what his involvement was with Y2K repairs. He knew nothing except that "they" were working on the
*software* problem at the facility from which the co-op buys its power. He was not aware of the
embedded systems problem, but confirmed that the co-op does have embedded systems in its
regulators. He assured me there would be no problems in the Y2K! So I asked him what he would
do if he knew 30% of the circuit boards in the regulators were going to fail, all at once. He
responded, his men could simply switch the regulators back to manual, ie they would cease to
regulate (the chip function?) but that the electricty would still flow. Does this mean that remote rural
co-ops still have manual transmission functionality? (Ignoring other obstacles such as generation).
Asked by Nicola Maurer (maurer@execpc.com) on July 15, 1998.
Answers
I spent Tuesday of last week with a top-ten G&T coop in the southern U.S. Their Operations
Manager related to me that one of their member distribution coop's (roughly 20,000 meters) was
always on the bleeding edge of technology, and had a lot of 'state of the art' relaying -
microprocessor based, date involvement, and no manual workarounds. Didn't know if the protective
relays were compliant or not. This is but one example.
From my perspective, the answer to your question is, small and rural does not equal "no problem".
As with all electric companies, it depends on equipment configurations and the age of the system.
Answered by Rick Cowles (rcowles@waterw.com) on July 16, 1998.
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