Energy Firms Use Web
To Drive Down Costs

KANSAS CITY, MO. -- When summer arrives, people here will crank up their air conditioners to ward off the heat. That means using electricity -- lots of it. At Kansas City Power & Light, it is Chris Kurtz's job to make sure the utility's 180 substations can deliver all that juice.

Soon Mr. Kurtz will have a new tool to keep tabs on his hulking transformers and circuit breakers: the Web. A substation now under construction in Johnson County, Kan., will include a special Internet link to let engineers monitor key systems. "There's very little room for error with this equipment," Mr. Kurtz says.

Can the Internet give us smarter electricity? It's a worthwhile question as we face another power-gulping summer season. So far utilities have harnessed the Net mainly as a trading platform to negotiate rates in a deregulated environment. But now substations, office-building environmental systems and even home air conditioners are going online. That could give us a power grid that's more reliable and more efficient.

These efforts are a reminder that the Net is at heart simply an information pipeline. Most of us use it to talk to other people, or, in the case of Web sites, other computers. But you can wire practically anything you like up to the global network, even a substation.

BIG REWARDS from so-called pervasive computing efforts have been predicted by technology enthusiasts for years. But progress has been slow so far. The work now under way in the world of energy will give us critical insights into whether the benefits of pervasive computing will ultimately outweigh the costs.

"By using information well, we can drive down operating costs," says Anthony J. Guzzi, president of commercial systems and services at United Technologies' Carrier unit, a giant maker of heating and cooling systems. How much? For a big chain-store operator with 800 locations, one degree in deviation from the desired temperature can cost $1 million a year, Mr. Guzzi says.

Right now Carrier is testing Internet hookups for its systems at a few customers. Remote monitoring isn't a new idea in air conditioning, but until now it has depended mainly on special software and clunky dial-up modems. With more commercial buildings connected to the Internet, it's getting easier to hook building systems up to the Net.

Meanwhile, wireless connections are finally making it possible to put consumer appliances online. Earlier this month Carrier and IBM announced MyAppliance, a program to introduce Web-enabled air conditioners in Europe. The machines will talk to the Net over the GSM phone network, allowing technicians to diagnose problems. And consumers can talk back, adjusting the temperature at home via a Web browser or wireless phone.

Michel Mayer, IBM's general manager of pervasive computing, is a passionate advocate of wiring up everything. So I asked him: What's taking so long? Mr. Mayer argues that everything is right on schedule. "Three years ago this was science fiction," he says. But he admits cost is an issue. Gadget-loving consumers might pay $50 or $100 extra for a Web-connected appliance, he says. Eventually, though, these features must become standard, even if companies charge you for the actual monitoring.

Cost is one factor, but the industry also needs to do a better job of proving benefits. Consumer appliances should work as cheaply and efficiently as possible. Some people can already program their air conditioners over the phone. It would be even more helpful if our air conditioners could download weather information and the latest rates from the electric company and program themselves accordingly, leaving us out of the loop and saving us some money.

THE RIGHT COMBINATION of cost and benefit persuaded Kansas City Power & Light to adopt Internet technology for its new substation. Other companies had pitched Mr. Kurtz on remote-monitoring systems -- to the tune of $120,000 per installation.

But then KCPL received a proposal from Cannon Technologies, a privately held power-systems company in Wayzata, Minn. Wiring up the new Pflumm substation in Johnson County would cost only $25,000, Cannon said, and subsequent installations would be even cheaper. "I want people to look at this and say I can't afford not to have it," says Ed Cannon, the company's president.

One benefit of the system, which is called esubstation.com, is to monitor systems more closely for maintenance purposes. Like any big utility, KCPL already has monitoring systems in place in all of its substations, but they are designed to detect and fix critical problems, and can usually be accessed only in the control center. Esubstation.com will collect more data and make it available more widely. And as a security safeguard, it will only be used to monitor. Remote-control functions will remain off the Net and in the control room.

Engineers will log onto a password-protected Web page to monitor key statistics. KCPL can then customize its maintenance plans for each piece of equipment, postponing costly work for underused equipment and identifying overtaxed transformers for early service. "We want to anticipate problems before they happen," says Bernard J. Beaudoin, the utility's CEO.