How Does Time Impact Our Life?

 I remember well the discussion on understanding and using UTC Time in IEC 61850 ... a very time consuming discussion. There are still discussions going on ... should UTC be replaced by something else?

Whatever format and scale you are using or inventing ... you will see problems over a longer period of use.

These days we see even cars may have crucial issues with processing of time:

Honda, Acura cars hit by Y2K22 bug that rolls back clocks to 2002:

The report starts with: "Honda and Acura cars have been hit with a Year 2022 bug, aka Y2K22, that resets the navigation system's clock to January 1st, 2002, with no way to change it."

True? Yes, it seems to be true.

A well known issue is related to the year 2038: Year 2038 problem

Many other time formatting and storage bugs!! 

Use the time you have in 2022 to spent more of it for or with your family, friends, ... stay safe in 2022!

Happy new year! 

Lesson learned: Don't expect that more automation, more programs, more smart phones, ... give you any additional time in your life! I guess they will consume a lot of your free time to find and fix bugs of many kinds ... 

Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) to retain “leap second”

For some time experts discuss the need of “leap seconds” that require very smart time management services to follow the number of leap seconds added from time to time. Leap seconds are added periodically to adjust to irregularities in the earth’s rotation in relation to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the current reference for measuring time, in order to remain close to mean solar time (UT1). A leap second was added most recently on 30 June 2015 at 23:59:60 UTC.

Do you know how many leap seconds have been added since UTC became a standard? Hm, your IEC 61850, IEC 60870-5-104, DNP3 devices and SCADA systems need to know it. Otherwise the time synchronization is more or less useless. 26 leap seconds have been added … and nobody knows when the next will be added.

Several experts have requested to get rid of the leap seconds … ITU decided to study the issue in more detail and come back to discuss the issue in 2013.

Click HERE for a report from ITU.

Click HERE for background information.

IEC 61850 UTC time stamp next leap second this month

Dear All,

The IEC 61850 time stamp uses the UTC time. The next leap second will be added on December 31, 2008:

2008 December 31, 23h 59m 59s
2008 December 31, 23h 59m 60s
2009 January 1, 0h 0m 0s

That means Dec 31, 2008 is one second longer than any other day in 2008!

As a consequence my birthday is (one second) longer than yours!! Yes, my birthday is Dec. 31 ...

I hope your SCADA and EMS systems take care of my birthday and adjust their glocks by inserting one "Karlheinz" second on Dec 31, 2008.

TAI, Temps Atomique International, is the international atomic time scale based on a continuous counting of the SI second. TAI is currently ahead of UTC by 33 seconds ... soon 34 seconds.