User-utility interface through the home system: a new opportunity to optimize the demand control and power supply service

By means of the customer service remote management system, which is to be installed preliminarily as a pilot application in an area of Rome, ENEL will transmit information over the user power line. ENEL has already explored a user terminal solution which exploits a domestic television set and which forms part of the architecture researched in Europe for home automation. The aim is to proceed, within a research programme, to specify a device which, linked up to the television set, transforms it into a user terminal. An adequate number of devices will be installed in the premises of a sufficient variety of users in order to assess the effectiveness of this customer interface as a useful aid to the electricity consumer. Since the terminal can combine remote management messages with teletext page contents, an agreement with a television broadcasting company is now under consideration in order to activate the transmission of pages