Power supply free of bug says industry

By Adam Gifford

The country's power companies say they have either finished or almost finished checking their systems for potential Y2K problems.

On behalf of the Electricity Industry Y2K Focus Group, BRC Marketing and Social Research surveyed all 30 network companies and the 13 power generators and retailers.

Asked when they expected computer applications necessary for the supply of electricity to be ready for the year 2000, 93 per cent said the work was completed and the rest said it would be done this month.

Some 88 per cent said electricity supply equipment with embedded chips had been fully checked or would be this month.

The sector was also doing well in the contingency stakes, with 79 per cent saying they had completed their plans.

Y2K focus group chairman Robert Scott, the manager of Transpower's Y2K project, said power companies found fewer problems than expected.

"Most electricity industry Y2K budgets spent less than they thought they would because they didn't find many problems," he said.

"What we have found is similar to Australia, Canada and the United States, that the power system is not susceptible to the Y2K bug.

"Most equipment is not interested in dates and does not pass dates around. There are problems in things like data loggers where the data may be sorted the wrong way, but it does not cause disruptive faults."

Mr Scott said much of the relay equipment is electromechanical, installed in the days before microprocessors became common.

"There is also a large contingency planning effort in the electricity industry anyway, which has been beefed up for Y2K. We have hot standby sites and duplicated systems which use equipment from different vendors."

Lines companies had their own telecommunications networks, using a number of technologies.

Mr Scott said the companies were holding off putting in new technology until the new year, and would continuing tests, drills and simulations.

The industry's confidence was reflected by the public, with the Y2K Readiness Commission's latest public opinion research released yesterday showing 80 per cent of New Zealanders expected power supplies would be maintained without interruption.

Commission director Clare Pinder said a more likely source of Y2K power problems would be motorists driving into power poles, as happened five times on a recent New Year's Eve in Auckland.

"We believe any interruptions to essential services would be localised and of short duration."