Energy competition brings choice to business.

Energy deregulation has brought on a new era in the relationship between businesses and their power companies. Competition between electricity suppliers has become a reality, and for the first time, businesses have been presented with an opportunity to change not only who supplies their power, but how that power is managed.

Unfortunately, many critics of deregulation have already passed judgement on the fledgling industry of competitively supplied power. Many have said that competition has failed to bring about the expected significant rate reductions.

It is true that, as of yet, competition has not brought about a remarkable reduction in electricity rates for most energy customers. Certainly, prices have not plummeted in a manner comparable to that of long-distance prices in the late 1990's, some 15 years after the break-up of AT&T. But in the new world of energy competition, simple rate reductions cannot be the only measure of deregulation's success.

Instead, it is important to examine the explosion of services that have been created for businesses as a result of energy competition. Gone are the days when a power company simply provided electricity and nothing else. As this new age of competition has taken shape, we have seen power companies change into "energy services providers," each offering a wide range of management, consulting and strategy services unheard of before deregulation.

Smart businesses know that in order to stay competitive, they must take strategic advantage of the opportunities created by this new marketplace. One of the most popular new services offered is energy optimization, a continuous loop of operating and energy purchasing strategies that are critically linked to maximum value. Effective optimization strategies can help businesses minimize their energy costs by leveraging wholesale commodity price fluctuations, improving the quality and reliability of the energy supply, and improving energy efficiency and performance.

Services such as infrastructure engineering offer energy customers the opportunity to manage their energy equipment - lighting, power, control systems, heating, ventilation and cooling - to create a more productive work environment for employees and cut costs through energy efficiency. In fact, a lighting upgrade developed by Con Edison Solutions helped the U.S. Postal Service reduce its energy costs by 20 percent annually at facilities in New York City, Westchester County, NY, and New Jersey.

Already, competition has brought about many valuable and potentially money-saving services, including energy management and information tools, which are designed to convert previously unavailable data into useful management tools. These include:

Energy Benchmarking, which compares a company's energy usage from year to year, facility to facility, or even how one business compares to its peers, enabling businesses to target infrastructure improvements for maximum efficiency gains.

Energy Use Profiles, which track electricity and gas consumption in time intervals as small as five minutes, allowing precise analysis of usage, and suggesting ways to improve efficiency.

Management Reporting that supports strategic decision-making and provides a mechanism for measuring results. If management doesn't know how much energy it is using, it can't possibly make changes that will reduce costs and improve productivity.

In short, competition has put energy services providers in the information management business. Customers now have choice, that much is true, but making that choice valuable requires the technological capacity and workforce intelligence to analyze and serve the complex needs of a business.

In the near future, no energy services provider will be able to remain competitive without the ability to deliver cost-saving, comprehensive solutions to their customers' energy needs. These energy services providers will look very much like today's information technology services companies.

In addition to creating a more energy- and cost-efficient work environment, energy services providers will be forced by competition to increase reliability. By evaluating a company's existing systems and loads, an energy services provider can determine the best strategy to ensure continuous energy supply in the event of power interruptions. Competition has made it imperative that energy providers implement a full range of solutions, from emergency generation to back-up systems to hybrid fuel systems, that maintain critical building functions.

By providing services never before available, energy services providers can help customers reduce costs, increase efficiency and overall competitiveness. Most of these services are available today, and we can expect many others to be offered in the future. In time, deregulation stands to offer energy customers savings equivalent to those generated by any deregulated industry. And with patience, we will all benefit. (Steve Manning is vice president of sales for Con Edison Solutions, an unregulated energy services company that is a subsidiary of Consolidated Edison, Inc.)