COLUMBUS, Ohio, Jan. 1, 2000 – As 1999 turned to 2000, American Electric Power (NYSE:AEP) experienced no problems related to Y2K and the electric utility’s operations are proceeding as normal. “It is business as usual this morning,” said Mike Heyeck, AEP’s director – transmission operations. “The rollover to 2000 has been virtually transparent to our customers.” Scattered outages occurred in some locations yesterday evening, but none was related to Y2K, Heyeck said. “On any given day, we experience outages in different areas of our seven-state service territory due to bad weather and other factors,” he said. “Because of heightened sensitivity created by Y2K, we had additional employees available to resolve any problems quickly and to provide timely information about those outages.” All systems necessary to keep electricity flowing to AEP’s 3 million customers were reviewed to ensure their continuing function when the new year arrived. Numerous contingency plans were already in place because AEP must be prepared daily to respond to emergency situations. The company developed Y2K-specific back-up plans to complement those existing contingency plans. AEP, a global energy company, is one of the United States’ largest investor-owned utilities, providing energy to 3 million customers in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. AEP has holdings in the United States, the United Kingdom, China and Australia. Wholly owned subsidiaries provide power engineering, energy consulting and energy management services around the world. The company is based in Columbus, Ohio. On Dec. 22, 1997, AEP announced a definitive merger agreement for a tax-free, stock-for-stock transaction with Central and South West Corp., a public utility holding company based in Dallas.