Planned or Private?

 

 

 

Some want to cut costs, others to improve service.

Uncertain economic times have always moved companies to find ways to cut costs. Utilities and energy companies are no different. They have turned to automated meter reading (AMR) during the past years in increasing numbers.

But many technology experts disagree on strategy: should utilities go high-tech or low-tech on AMR?

 

Why it's just as important for the old economy.

Mention "power quality" and the mind conjures up visions of tech hotels stuffed with Internet servers running 24/7, retrofitted into inner city industrial warehouses-buildings sturdy enough to forgive the heavy installation of custom power supply equipment and racks of batteries. Or perhaps Silicon Valley.

 

A call for utilities to leave the marketing business.

Many of us on the front lines can identify with Stanley Klein's observation that, in terms of its implementation, the restructuring of the electric power industry is "fundamentally an information technology event."¹

Telecoms may offer IOUs a model for multiplying market caps by dividing their shareholdings.

April 1, 2000