SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Echelon Corporation (NASDAQ:ELON) today announced that its NES Energy Control System has been selected as one of five solutions in a 50,000 home smart metering pilot project by PermEnergo, part of the MRSK group, one of Russia’s largest utilities. Echelon value added reseller Engineering Center ENERGOAUDITKONTROL was awarded a contract for networking 10,000 homes in a pilot project that is being monitored by the Russian government as a potential model for the country. With experience networking over 300,000 smart meter points in smart grid projects using Echelon’s Networked Energy Services (NES) smart grid infrastructure system, ENERGOAUDITKONTROL is the leading smart grid services provider in Russia. PermEnergo expects the pilot project to save its customers up to 20% of their electricity usage while lowering its operating costs and improving the overall efficiency of the grid. Installation is expected to begin over the summer and be completed by the end of 2011.
“This is an important step for Russia in establishing a successful working model for moving their national smart grid plans forward and an important milestone in Russia and US cooperation,” said Ron Sege, Echelon’s CEO and president. “Russia’s ambitious energy strategy is to establish a smart grid strategy that goes well beyond smart meters. This makes a strong business case for our solution, with an emphasis on reducing technical and non-technical losses, operational improvements, load management, and more responsive customer service.”
The PermEnergo pilot project falls under a federal program called “Count. Save. Pay.”, a key part of Russia’s plan for infrastructure modernization, and has attracted the personal interest of President Medvedev. The project is part of a smart grid initiative by Interregional Distributive Grid Company of Urals and Volga (IDGC URAL), the business that manages distribution companies for the Perm, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, and Kurgan regions of Russia. Over 2 million households are serviced by IDGC URAL companies.
The pilot project win follows closely on an early March Russian-American smart grid summit in the Kaluga region of Russia, where ENERGOAUDITKONTROL presented their Echelon-based smart grid solution. The summit was a follow up to a meeting held in July 2009 between the U.S. President Obama and Russian President Medvedev to open a dialog and establish contacts among smart grid companies from the two countries. Participants included representatives of city and regional administrations, FSI "Russian Energy Agency," IDGC of Center and Volga Region, the Regional Center for Energy Efficiency (Kaluga), and others. The U.S. contingent included representatives from the United States Energy Association (USEA), the American Association for the Advancement of International Relations (USAID), and Echelon. The summit discussed laws and regulations for the development of the smart grid in the U.S. and Russia, as well as continued a dialogue on economic and financial mechanisms to encourage investment in the technology of intelligent networks.
More information about Echelon’s NES System and smart grid solutions can be found at http://www.echelon.com/solutions/smartgrid/ .
About Echelon Corporation
Echelon Corporation (NASDAQ: ELON) is leading the worldwide transformation of the electricity grid into a smart, communicating energy network, connecting utilities to their customers, enabling networking of everyday devices, and providing customers with energy aware homes and businesses that react to conditions on the grid.
Echelon's NES System – the control networking infrastructure for the smart grid – enables intelligent distributed control applications and devices that deliver maximum reliability, survivability and responsiveness. Through the Echelon Control System (ECoS) platform, the NES system enables any device, speaking any protocol, connected over any network to be integrated into local decision making and connected securely to enterprise IT systems through virtually any IP network. The NES System helps utilities compete more effectively, reduce operating costs, provide expanded services and help energy users manage and reduce overall energy use.
Echelon's LonWorks® Infrastructure products extend the smart grid in to smart buildings factories, homes and other systems, powering tens of millions of energy aware, everyday devices made by thousands of companies – connecting them to each other, to the electricity grid and to the Internet. LonWorks based products work together to monitor and save energy; lower costs; improve productivity; and enhance service, quality, safety, and convenience in utility, municipal, building, industrial, transportation, and home area networks.
More information about Echelon can be found at http://www.echelon.com.
Echelon, LonWorks, and the Echelon logo are registered trademarks of Echelon Corporation registered in the United States and other countries. Other product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.
This press release may contain statements relating to future plans, events or performance. Such statements may involve risks and uncertainties, including risks associated with uncertainties pertaining to market acceptance of Echelon’s products and the timing and level of customer orders in Russia and elsewhere; risks relating to the timing of availability of Echelon’s NES System and its component products; risks that Echelon offerings do not perform as designed and that liability may accrue as a result; risks relating to market acceptance of ENERGOAUDITKONTROL’s solutions that incorporate Echelon’s products; the risk that the pilot project with ENERGOAUDITKONTROL may not result in a full deployment, and other risks identified in Echelon's SEC filings. Actual results, events and performance may differ materially. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. Echelon undertakes no obligation to release publicly the result of any revisions to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.
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