Largest Utility in Finland Selects Echelon's NES Advanced Metering Infrastructure for over 500,000 Homes
(San Jose, CA - August 28, 2009) - Echelon Corporation (NASDAQ: ELON) announced today that Fortum, the largest utility in Finland and a leading energy company in the Nordic countries, has awarded an advanced metering infrastructure project to Telvent (NASDAQ: TLVT) using Echelon's Networked Energy Services (NES) system integrated with Telvent's Smart Metering Titanium for 550,000 customers in Finland. Telvent is a value-added reseller of Echelon's NES system. This project is the largest advanced metering deployment in Finland to date, where there are approximately 3.1 million electricity customers.
Revenue to Echelon over the life of the project is expected to be approximately $50 to $60 million, depending upon the configuration selected. Volume deployments are scheduled to begin in 2011 and are expected to be complete by 2014.
Echelon's NES system was selected by Fortum in order to meet Fortum's key objectives of offering energy saving and home automation programs for homeowners, as well as for the ability to provide hourly measurement of energy use to retail customers and bi-directional net energy measurement for customer-owned alternative energy generation.
"With the new smart meters invoicing will be based on real electricity consumption," says Timo Karttinen, Fortum's Senior Vice President for Corporate Development. "Better knowledge in turn improves energy efficiency and makes it easier to operate and manage network capacity when actual customer electricity consumption is known. In addition, the smart meters will be used for faster power failure resolution and as a platform for future services within electricity solutions."
“We are pleased to be chosen by Fortum for this project. Finnish regulators have specified a rich set of high-level requirements that the smart grid infrastructure must meet, a trend we see growing throughout the world. Utilities and regulators are looking to leverage their investments to build a truly smart grid, and together with Echelon, we are confident that we will help Fortum to achieve that goal. Echelon has been a great partner, and I am sure that we will continue our successful relationship for many years,” said Manuel Sánchez Ortega, Telvent's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
“This win demonstrates the vast capability of the NES system. We believe it provides the most advanced, flexible, and cost-effective smart grid infrastructure solution available. This win also demonstrates the strength and experience that our partner, Telvent, has in building powerful solutions that meet the growing needs of electric utilities worldwide,” said Ken Oshman, Echelon's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
About the Solution
The NES advanced metering infrastructure from Echelon 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. Echelon's NES electricity meters can support a ZigBee wireless interface, which will enable Fortum to securely share information between meters and in-home devices.
About Fortum
Fortum is a leading energy company focusing on the Nordic countries, Russia and the Baltic Rim area. Its activities cover the generation, distribution and sale of electricity and heat and the operation and maintenance of power plants. Fortum's vision is to be the benchmark power and heat company excelling in sustainability. www.fortum.com
About Telvent
Telvent (NASDAQ: TLVT) is a global IT solutions and business information services provider that improves the efficiency, safety and security of the world's premier organizations. The company serves markets critical to the sustainability of the planet, including the energy, transportation, agriculture, and environmental sectors. www.telvent.com
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, and providing customers with energy aware homes and businesses that react to conditions on the grid. 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 development efforts relating to the NES system; risks associated with the NES system's ability to perform as designed; the risk that the Fortum project is subsequently cancelled or reduced in size; risks associated with potential production or shipment delays of NES components to Telvent by Echelon or its production partners; risks that the Fortum deployment and system integration activities with Echelon, Telvent and other partners in the project are not successful, do not meet their target dates, do not expand or gain momentum, cause Echelon to be liable for penalties or other liabilities or cause Fortum to terminate the project; the risk that a final agreement between Echelon and Telvent is not executed or that the contemplated transactions with Fortum are challenged by third parties; 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 and Telvent undertake 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.
Contact Information
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Julia O'Shaughnessy |
Allyson Stinchfield Atomic Public Relations +1 (415) 402-0230 allyson@atomicpr.com |