STORY:
Alberta's Power Ready For 2000

Blackouts unlikely say officials in Canadian province

Alberta's electrical power agency says it's unlikely that there will be any blackouts as 1999 switches into 2000. A report in The Edmonton Journal quotes officials with ESBI Alberta Ltd. as saying the province's major power companies have met a North American deadline of announcing their Y2K readiness. ESBI is a company that manages the electrical transmission system in Alberta.

"We can't say 100 per cent, but we're sure going to minimize the likelihood of anything happening," Bill Kennedy of ESBI tells The Edmonton Journal. Kennedy said, after extensive testing and repairing of systems at the various power companies, Albertans can be assured there won't be disruptions as New Year's Eve ticks into the next millennium.

Power companies throughout North America are planning for a continent-wide test of communications systems in the early hours of Sept. 9 to deal with possible problems. It will be a larger and more thorough test than a similar one conducted last April that found some minor problems.

Blackouts outside Alberta would be unlikely to cause a domino effect within the province because systems have been set up to cut off interconnections to the power grid in that event, Kennedy told The Edmonton Journal. "We would automatically disconnect the transmission line if there were problems in Saskatchewan or B.C."

Source: The Edmonton Journal

DATE: 7/07/99

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