Grocer to save power using Web

From...

By Bob Brewin

(IDG) -- Thanks to a wireless, Web-based energy-control system, Albertson's Inc. this summer will be able to shut off the lights in a matter of seconds in any of 206 California supermarkets from a PC at its headquarters in Boise, Idaho.

The company expects the new system, installed on a rush basis during the past three months, to shave its energy costs and help the state's electric utilities conserve power in a summer that could be filled with rolling blackouts.

Glenn Barrett, Albertson's senior energy manager, said the grocery chain expects to cut $1 million from its annual power bill through rebates for load curtailment as a result of using the system. The company also received a $1.6 million grant from California to help defray the cost of installing the system.

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"No one else I know of has installed a system like this," said Jennifer Ramp, a spokeswoman for Pacific Gas & Electric Co. in San Francisco.

Albertson's has more than 700 stores in California. Barrett said the grocer installed the system in the areas most affected by the energy crunch: the San Francisco Bay area, metropolitan Los Angeles and the San Diego area.

While cost savings were a factor in deciding to install the system, the real motivation was "to be a good corporate citizen" and help the state manage its power crisis, Barrett said.

To control the lights in the stores, all Barrett has to do is log on to a secure Web browser connected to an energy-management system developed and installed by Fairfield, N.J.-based Notifact Inc.

"I can go on the browser and call up a list of the stores and turn the lights off," he said.

That's a move he'll need to make whenever the state gives notice that an area must cut its power consumption within 30 minutes. Once Barrett taps into the software, the Notifact system makes programmed, automated calls to tell stores "that their lights go out in 15 minutes."

David Sandelman, Notifact's chief technology officer, said the company has already started installing microprocessor-based controllers "costing under $1,000" in each of the stores that will use the system. The controllers will pick up the lights-out message sent from the browser in Boise over a machine-to-machine cellular data network operated by Aeris.net in San Jose. These controllers, in turn, will relay the simple on/off information to the store's energy-management system.

Wade Vesey, vice president of marketing at Aeris, said using the cellular system saves the stores from having to run phone wires to the rooftop-mounted controllers. Barrett said the battery-powered controllers also ensure that Albertson's energy-management system isn't knocked out in a blackout.

Barrett added that the system could also be configured to automatically turn off refrigerator and freezer cases in each store, "but we don't want to do that because then things would start to melt."