King County hopes new energy-tracking software will save it money, electricity

King County officials say they hope to save money and energy by using new software that tracks electricity use in real-time.

On Monday, King County Executive Dow Constantine toured Microsoft Corp.'s operations center in Redmond, Washington, to see how the company's energy-smart buildings project works.

Microsoft has been using the software to analyze real-time data on heating, cooling and other systems in its building. The software figures out when things aren't working as they should.

The county plans to test the software in five buildings in a two-year pilot project. They say the software will help them prioritize maintenance fixes and find problems as they happen.