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Technology Stocks : Year 2000 (Y2K) Embedded Systems and Utilities -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Mansfield who wrote (27)	7/19/1998 10:35:00 AM
From: John Mansfield	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89

'Rick's "current" position regarding risk to power supply asked in the Electric Utilities and Y2K Q&A Forum Rick, can you say what your current position is regarding the yr2k risk to the (electric) power supply. Do you still think there is a real prospect of the power system failing to any degree. As far as yr2k is concerned the possibility of prolonged power cuts must be one of the worst possible scenarios. Many Thanks Richard Asked by Richard Dale (rdale@figroup.co.uk) on July 17, 1998. Answers My current position hasn't changed much from earlier this year. I still expect to see significant problems in some U.S. geographic areas. There simply isn't very much Y2k action happening in the smaller REA's or municipals. And of course, this situation could translate into problems for the larger IOU's that have scads of generating and distribution capacity. For more details, hit the euy2k.com website. Answered by Rick Cowles (rcowles@waterw.com) on July 19, 1998. greenspun.com

To: John Mansfield who wrote (27)	7/19/1998 10:38:00 AM
From: John Mansfield	Respond to of 89

'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. greenspun.com