DEVELOPMENT FOR THE ELECTRIC UTILITIES NETWORKS TOWARDS THE NATIONAL,INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE

The deregulation of the electricity supply industry will provide for t he emergence of new telecommunications and information technologies an d the eventual information super-highway. A utility needs to understan d the long-term strategy of potential telecommunications before making any decisions. With an increasing competitive environment utility com panies face a window of both necessity and opportunity. The necessity to investigate and assess the information and telecommunications capab ilities they will need to be competitive in their main operations and the opportunity to consider new sources of revenue that such capabilit ies may make possible. irrespective of approach a utility takes to int egrating its main activities with the emerging information superhighwa y, only a confluence of energy and information technologies can meet t he national challenge of efficiently managing energy demand, supply an d transmission. Utilities will be driven to become more competitive in deploying both supply-side and demand side energy information service s in order to control access to the customer and prevent erosion of th eir customer base. However at the same time, utilities have the potent ial to become significant players in the communications field especial ly towards the superhighway by providing non-energy value added servic es through telecommunications infrastructures. Structuring a telecommu nications architecture and strategy for a particular utility is diffic ult because it involves many interconnected technological, economic, c ompetitive and financial considerations. This paper will consider thes e key points including telecommunications networks, supply side inform ation services and energy information services. The changes in archite cture and technologies of communications systems leading tb new servic es plus additional attributes to current services will be covered.