With an Internet connection, utility companies will be able to adjust thousands of participating customers’ thermostats in the event of an emergency to prevent rolling brownouts, according to a recent announcement by Sage Systems, a provider of technology for networking everyday devices via the Web.

The new technology will be featured in the Cisco Systems Internet Homes’ Briefing Center in San Jose, designed to exhibit consumer solutions and Internet technologies currently available.

The product, known as Sage’s Aladn (Autonomous Local Area Distributed Networking), is designed to manage energy usage. It will be featured in the Internet Home, along with an Aladn Internet gateway and Aladn-enabled thermostats and light switches. Attendees will also see how consumers can intelligently control their home’s energy usage via an Internet Web browser either in the home or remotely using the system.

“Managing energy consumption benefits both the consumer and the provider,” said Mark Dwight, manager of Cisco’s Consumer Solutions Team. “The application is especially interesting as the popular press chronicles our nationwide energy woes.”

Showing energy providers how they can leverage Internet technologies to enable new management tools is the goal of Sage System’s president and CEO, Steve Raschke. In addition, it can provide consumers with powerful, intuitive mastery over their home and business environments. Energy providers, homebuilders and broadband providers will be able to form closer connections to their customers as well.

Published: January 12, 2001

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A veteran of the real estate and homebuilding industries since 1986, Dena Kouremetis first joined Realty Times as a new homes writer in 1998. Since then, she has authored four books, written consumer columns on new homes issues for websites and newspapers all across the country, contributed to builder trade magazines, appeared as a guest expert on several radio shows and even created a ten-chapter podcast for LendingTree.com’s homebuilder website, iNest.com, now available on iTunes, entitled Uncharted Waters; Navigating the Purchase of a New Production Home. Kouremetis recently joined her local Folsom, CA Coldwell Banker office as a broker associate while continuing to write for the real estate industry. For the past three years, she has been training real estate agents for both the resale and new homes industries, putting her experience, research expertise and gift of expression to work to help others entering the business.