TELECOMMUNICATIONS : TCI Eyes ‘Smart Home’ Design Plan With Microsoft and PG

Tele-Communications Inc. is in talks to launch a unique pilot project in conjunction with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and Microsoft Corp. to design a “smart home.”

The project, which would serve about 200 homes in Walnut Creek, Calif., near San Francisco, ultimately aims to tie together a home’s utility, cable TV and telephone services.

According to people familiar with the project, PG&E; is interested in using fiber-optic lines provided by cable TV companies to operate the “energy management” needs of homes.

As envisioned, the pilot program would eventually allow people to control the energy needs of their home by wireless telephone or computer. More immediately, the service would allow PG&E; to read a customer’s meter electronically or detect power outages.

TCI and Microsoft declined to comment. A spokesman for PG&E; said the San Francisco-based utility is in “preliminary discussions” with TCI but declined to comment further.

Utility companies around the country are studying the possibility of building “telecommunications links” to their customers in order to monitor and adjust the power demands of homes on a moment-by-moment basis. Proponents say that such high-tech systems will help conserve energy, reduce the need for new power plants and cut pollution.

Such projects raise the question to what extent utility companies may participate in the coming information highway and the hundreds of channels it is expected to bring into American households. Utility companies, like the phone companies, have a wire into virtually every home in their service areas. Increasingly, these traditionally separate businesses may converge and offer services once provided only by competitors.

“Technically, there’s no reason the electric companies shouldn’t be in the cable business, or vice versa,” said Arnold Tussing, a utilities consultant in Seattle. “Once you’ve got homes wired, there’s a lot of economy in providing additional services.”

TCI is in the process of merging with Bell Atlantic Corp., the mid-Atlantic regional phone company. The merger would eventually allow for TCI to provide phone service to its cable subscribers, and for Bell Atlantic to provide cable TV to its phone customers--most of which do not overlap.

Times staff writer Amy Harmon contributed to this report.