BLACKOUTS BLAMED ON RISING USE OF HOME ELECTRONICS.

Byline: Kevin F. Sherry Daily News Staff Writer

The proliferation of personal computers and cordless telephones may be behind the recent wave of power outages in the Morrison Ranch and Fountainwood neighborhoods, utility officials say.

Southern California Edison officials have spent the past two weeks inspecting transformers, connectors and cables, trying to find out why the area's 1,566 customers lost power 10 times since July 10. The utility's standards call for no more than two outages in any area in a year.

Work crews found six transformers near or at capacity, and those units will be replaced with newer, more powerful units, said Rudy Gonzales, Edison's regional manager.

``We found pretty much what we expected to find,'' Gonzales said. ``We're going to be replacing a fair amount of connector components. They are one area that we typically look to first.''

When the homes were built 15 to 20 years ago, builders took into account the power needed for refrigerators, air conditioners and lights - the usual electricity burners, Gonzales said. Since then, many customers have added cordless phones, personal computers and video games.

``The load kind of grows on the system,'' Gonzales said.

The overtaxed components will be replaced during October and November, Gonzales said.

``What we're doing is more of a proactive measure to minimize further outages,'' he said. ``It may be necessary to take them out of service for a time. . . . They'll be notified several days in advance.''

The outage-plagued region is bordered roughly by Fountainwood Street on the north, Grey Rock Road on the west, Thousand Oaks Boulevard on the south and Kanan Road on the east. Transformers, cables, switches and connectors all have failed at different times, causing the outages. The outages have lasted from 14 minutes to several hours.