One of the most ambitious projects to apply Echelon Corp’s Lonworks operating environment and Local Operating Node processors is under way right here in the UK. The threat of open competition in the electricity pool and the shadow of even fiercer competition from the cheaper gas as a home heating fuel is concentrating minds in the electricity industry wonderfully, and most of the major UK power generators are participating in a project called Celect, which mobilises the resources of the British Broadcasting Corp, the Meteorological Office and Echelon’s Local Operating Network control system for household and consumer appliances to perfect a means of cutting power consumption and reducing customers’ electricity bills, with remote meter reading, eliminating the absurdity of meter readers trailing around empty home after empty home trying to read the meters of those families where husband and wife are in full employment, a by-product of the system.
