Are we really on line? Getting the energy industry connected.(Energy online: management information systems)

One of the lessons to be gained from the XML Symposium is that XML (extensible markup language), a fairly high-level software tool, will have a great impact on the energy business. The XML Symposium, held in January in conjunction with the AHR Expo, introduced this tool to a class of users who will use it to develop Internet services for building automation and energy management.

Before considering the potential uses of XML, the energy industry needs to examine its use of existing information technologies. Gartner, Inc., a business and market analysis think tank, provides interesting information to further that examination (see the figure).

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The technology business is right in the middle of the ongoing economic recovery in the U.S. Still, investors are reluctant to support technology because of the huge losses they sustained when the tech bubble burst in the late 1990s. The recent Optimize magazine article "Altered States" by Simon Hayward of Gartner characterized this as the e-business hype cycle.

Hayward stated that e-business is not gone, but rather that business is using the technology to support operations and processes.

Hayward acknowledges that Internet technologies have been a great disappointment to investors, noting the "peak of inflated expectations." Still, the full value of the Internet to business has yet to be realized, and the full realization of this value has exciting implications for energy and buildings. What the buildings and energy industry has heralded as convergence, system integration, and Interact digital control conforms to trends predicted by the business hype cycle for e-business growth.

Convergence (November 2003, Energy Online), has been likened to a highway interchange that allows for a seamless flow of information between disparate systems. Convergence is the logical extension of building automation, which has evolved from heating, ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC) control to direct digital control (DDC). Convergence is the process of integrating DDC and other special systems like fire and security to enhance facility management.