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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 (43)	7/27/1998 1:56:00 PM
From: John Mansfield	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89

'Could be some reason for concern on utilities' Y2K readiness BY AKWELI PARKER, The Virginian-Pilot Copyright 1998, Landmark Communications Inc. As far-reaching as the effects of the Year 2000 computer problem promise to be, perhaps none is as chilling as its potential to affect the electric power grid. ''I would hope that the major industries are OK, like the phone system and the power system,'' said Godfrey Grier, of Virginia Beach-based Metro Information Systems. ''Because without power, things come to a halt pretty quick.'' It could be a screeching halt, according to testimony at a recent Senate Special Committee hearing on the Year 2000 problem. Although individual electric utilities have been addressing the problem as early as 1995, no industrywide assessment has been made and no state-of-readiness measure is available, according to the Electric Power Research Institute, an industry think tank. A non-scientific Senate staff survey of the 10 largest U.S. electric, oil and natural gas utilities uncovered some disturbing facts: Only 20 percent of the firms had fully assessed their automated systems. One firm did not know how many lines of computer code it had. None of the companies had been assured that its vendors and service providers would meet the inflexible deadline of Jan. 1, 2000. None of the firms had finished back-up plans for Year 2000-related failures, even though they're required by regulators to keep emergency-response plans. For utilities, there are two species of the Year 2000 bug: software-related programming bugs and ''embedded'' bugs. The latter are particularly nettlesome because they reside in the chips that contain computers' hardwired operating instructions. Embedded systems, which run many of the ''mission critical'' components of power plants, are such a big worry for utilities that the Electric Power Research Institute set up an information-sharing program devoted to that concern. Embedded systems are found in load dispatch computers, nuclear power plant safety systems and fossil plant boiler control systems, to name a few places. The U.S. Department of Energy has tasked the North American Electric Reliability Council, which was set up in the aftermath of the Great 1965 Blackout, with coordinating an industrywide testing and repair effort. That effort is already under way, according to William Mistr, who oversees Year 2000 compliance for Richmond-based Dominion Resources. Dominion subsidiary Virginia Power says it's been on top of the Year 2000 problem since 1996 and it established a companywide plan a year later. The utility serves more than 2 million people in Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. ''We have, on average, between 80 and 90 people working on the project,'' said Virginia Power spokesman Tom Kazas. The company says it's contacting hundreds of vendors, suppliers and service providers and testing their products to see that they comply. Dominion Resources estimated earlier this year that it would spend between $100 million and $150 million to bring all of its systems up to speed. If the sale of its East Midlands Electricity division goes through as planned, the bill will be about half that. Dominion is an international energy company with subsidiaries in real estate and financial services. Mistr said he would not ''speculate'' on the possibility of service interruptions. The power grid is highly interconnected, and some people fear that a massive outage in one area could trigger a domino-like effect in surrounding areas -- similar to the 1965 blackout that blanketed the Northeast. Much of the power grid is automated for efficiency, Mistr said, but it can allow for manual overrides in case of malfunction. ''To tell you that there will be absolutely no impacts, I wouldn't make that statement,'' said Mistr. ''There could be some bumps, there will be. . . but we are taking action that's going to mitigate Y2K issues for our customers.'' ''The bottom line is,'' said Mistr, ''we're going to make sure all the critical things are done.'' Staff writer Lon Wagner contributed to this story. pilotonline.com