Echelon and GEO to Provide Real-Time Energy Use Information
(San Jose, CA - December 16, 2009) - Echelon Corporation (NASDAQ: ELON) and Green Energy Options Ltd., (GEO) a leading provider of energy displays for consumers, today announced a collaboration to develop energy displays for Echelon’s Networked Energy Services (NES) System, a leading advanced metering infrastructure solution. Last week the U.K. government confirmed plans to require all households to have smart meters by 2020, and that each home must be supplied with a real-time energy display to show consumers how much energy is being used throughout the day.
Echelon and GEO representatives are at COP15, the United Nations Climate Change Summit, through December 18, 2009, in Copenhagen, to bring attention to the role of energy conservation in reducing CO2 emissions and climate change.
GEO’s energy displays use ZigBee wireless protocols to communicate directly with Echelon’s range of NES smart meters, providing current and historical energy use, pricing information, and energy performance comparisons to consumers in real-time using a portable, graphically rich display.
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In addition to energy displays for smart metering applications, GEO also manufactures smart energy plugs using Echelon’s power line communications technology to remotely control home appliances and measure energy use of individual appliances.
“The U.K. government is serious about changing energy consumption behavior and the first step in enabling this change is showing consumers when and where they use the most energy,” said Patrick Caiger-Smith, CEO, GEO. “Consumers can reduce energy use and save money, and collectively we can affect climate change by learning to use energy more wisely. Empowering consumers to monitor and control energy expenditures is a key objective for the U.K. and other European governments, and, as an integral part of the smart gird, a huge market opportunity for us.” Analysts estimate that the European smart meter market will reach $11 billion by 2015.
“Moving forward, complete automation of the grid will become the norm, and this will be based on real-time energy use information,” said Mark Ossel, Echelon’s vice president of Energy & Utility. “Extending the NES System by working with companies like GEO makes our NES System the key piece of the smart grid infrastructure that informs and engages consumers. We believe that it offers the best solution to both energy providers and consumers to move the smart grid forward.”
About Echelon’s NES System
The NES advanced metering infrastructure consists of a family of highly integrated, advanced electronic electricity meters accessed via a Web services based network operating system over an IP networking infrastructure. Much more than a simple AMI system focused on billing related services, the NES System provides utilities with a wealth of information about the status, operation and health of the grid that enables them to reduce operating costs while increasing service quality.
For more information regarding Echelon’s NES System visit www.echelon.com/nes.
About Green Energy Options Ltd. (GEO)
Green Energy Options is an innovative business which is dedicated to helping people use energy more efficiently, to cut carbon emissions, and to move toward renewable energy sources. GEO is leading the market with its state–of-the-art display technology and innovation, which enables energy users to understand and ultimately control their energy use.
More information about GEO can be found at www.greenenergyoptions.co.uk.
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 backbone for the smart grid – is used by utilities to replace existing stand-alone electricity meters with a network infrastructure that is open, inexpensive, reliable, and proven. 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, 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 www.echelon.com.
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Echelon 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 the timing and level of customer orders, demand for products and services, and development of markets for Echelon's NES System; risks associated with the ability of the NES System and NES meters to perform as designed; 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.
Press Contacts
Julia O'Shaughnessy |
Allyson Stinchfield Atomic Public Relations +1 (415) 402-0230 allyson@atomicpr.com |
James Rankin Green Energy Options + 44 (0) 1223 851 314 james@greenenergyoptions.co.uk |
