Elster Powers Smart Grid Project for New Hampshire Electric Cooperative

RALEIGH, N.C. and PLYMOUTH, N.H., Feb. 24, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Elster (NYSE: ELT) and the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative (NHEC) today announced that the NHEC has selected Elster's EnergyAxis® Smart Grid solution to improve operational efficiency and empower members with more visibility and control over energy usage.

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The largest cooperative utility in New England, NHEC will deploy EnergyAxis® and more than 84,000 Elster Smart Meters to enable advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) capabilities, such as remote meter reading and comprehensive energy usage monitoring. The NHEC Smart Grid project will begin in the summer of 2011 and run through the end of 2012. Elster will manage the full deployment of the installation.

"We needed a Smart Grid technology partner that understood and could meet our unique geographic and technology requirements," said Fred Anderson, NHEC President/CEO.

"Elster has demonstrated success in rural areas and across different elevations with both large and small utilities, making us very confident that EnergyAxis will enable NHEC and our members to realize the benefits of the Smart Grid," Anderson added.

With data from Elster's EnergyAxis solution, NHEC will create a web portal that provides members with more information on energy usage patterns, helping to reduce costs and improve energy efficiency. The Smart Grid deployment also is expected to deliver operating improvements such as fewer truck rolls related to power outages and meter reads.

"NHEC will work hand-in-hand with Elster throughout the entire Smart Grid project to ensure the consistency of our high service and to educate members every step of the way," Anderson said.

"NHEC understands the importance of ensuring its Smart Grid deployment is done right the first time and that members are engaged in its many benefits," said Mark Munday, president and CEO of Elster Solutions.

"Elster has successfully deployed Smart Grid projects of different sizes across varied terrains, helping utilities around the world improve both energy delivery and customer service. We are bringing this depth of experience and our Smart Grid technology solutions to NHEC for its deployment," Munday added.

Elster's EnergyAxis, a field-proven Smart Grid solution with more than 80 active deployments and 4.5 million endpoints across the globe, enables utilities to:

• Realize operational efficiencies;
• Conserve environmental and economic resources by reducing the losses in electricity, gas and water infrastructures;
• Reduce outages, and improve outage response and repair time;
• Improve customer service and consumer choice;
• Implement demand response programs that can conserve resources and reduce costs, especially during periods of peak demand;
• Provide real-time information to end consumers to allow them to better manage their energy consumption; and
• Detect and reduce non-technical grid losses.

About Elster

Elster (NYSE: ELT) is one of the world's largest electricity, gas and water measurement and control providers. Our offerings include distribution monitoring and control, advanced smart metering, demand response, networking and software solutions, and numerous related communications and services – key components for enabling consumer choice, operational efficiency and conservation. Our products and solutions are widely used by utilities in the traditional and emerging Smart Grid markets.  

Elster has one of the most extensive installed revenue measurement bases in the world, with more than 200 million metering devices deployed over the course of the last 10 years. It sells its products and services in more than 130 countries across electricity, gas, water and multi-utility applications for residential, commercial and industrial, and transmission and distribution applications.

For more information about Elster, please visit www.elster.com.

About NHEC

Founded in 1939 and headquartered in Plymouth, NH, New Hampshire Electric Cooperative is a member-owned electric distribution cooperative serving 80,000 members in 115 New Hampshire communities.

SOURCE Elster