Echelon and Kapsch Expand Partnership in Austria with Smart Meter Deployment at Stadtwerke Feldkirch

SAN JOSE, Calif., Dec. 12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Echelon Corporation (NASDAQ: ELON), a global leader in energy control networking for smart grid, smart city and smart building applications, and Kapsch Smart Energy, a subsidiary of the $1.2B revenue per year Kapsch Group, which offers solutions for smart energy management, announced that they are currently operating 13,000 of Echelon's smart meters, which is part of the Echelon Energy Control Networking Platform, at Stadtwerke Feldkirch, the municipal utility for the city of Feldkirch, Austria. Kapsch and Echelon plan to target other utilities in Austria and Central Europe to bring the benefits of a multi-application grid modernization platform to utilities there. In the next few years the partners expect this market to be nearly five million in size.

"We are excited to partner with Kapsch on this opportunity and proud to supply Feldkirch with proven, reliable and feature rich smart meters, and we applaud their leadership position in modernizing the grid," said Michael Anderson, senior vice president, Worldwide Markets, at Echelon. "Echelon's smart metering solution satisfies both existing regulatory and business demands, but it also provides customers insight so they can better manage their energy usage and offer a path to meet future requirements and programs in the Austrian market."

Feldkirch was the first city in Austria to employ smart metering. Kapsch operates not only the meters but also the network infrastructure, the central control and analysis system and the energy consumption information for the end customer portal, where households and businesses can view their power consumption in order to individually optimize their power use. In addition to helping individual users lower their energy costs, these solutions also open up new possibilities for energy suppliers, such as in the area of pricing.

"I was pleasantly surprised that integrating the meters was practically plug-and-play from our perspective. Thanks to the mature solution, the system optimally fulfills our smart metering requirements," says Karlheinz Kresser, project director at Stadtwerke Feldkirch.

Feldkirch mandated the highest security standards of Kapsch and Echelon to satisfy all statutory and data privacy requirements of the Austrian smart meter ordinances. Echelon's smart meters use the existing electricity networks for transmitting data to the nearest network node. Every step of the communication is dynamically encrypted at 128 bits. This is the same level of security employed as other security intensive applications such as online banking. Corresponding authentication mechanisms for the meters and in the end customer portal are designed to prevent unauthorized access.

"The concepts of smart metering and smart grids are still relatively young. From the beginning, Kapsch has focused not only on the technical aspects but also on the legal and organizational factors. With international partners like Echelon, we also bring experiences from other countries into smart energy projects. With its multi-application platform based on open standards, Echelon has the best-established solution in the world," says Christian Schober, CEO of Kapsch Smart Energy. "This partnership further secures our lead in this market segment. The strengths of Kapsch Smart Energy and Echelon complement each other optimally," says Schober.

About Kapsch Smart Energy GmbH - a company of the Kapsch Group
Partners with energy supply companies to offer solutions for smart energy management. Smart metering and smart grids are important factors in achieving the goals of the European directive on energy efficiency and energy services. The company combines the extensive know-how of the Kapsch Group in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and Information and Communication Technology (IKT) with the competence of highly specialized providers of components such as smart meters. The core of the solutions, for which Kapsch Smart Energy can handle the entire planning, implementation and operation, is the internally developed, flexible and meter-independent system software 'Meter Data Management'. In addition to numerous analyses, reporting and alarm management functions, this software also offers expansion options for energy control, smart street lighting and building automation. For more information: www.kapschsmartenergy.at.

About Echelon Corporation
Echelon Corporation (NASDAQ: ELON) is an energy control networking company, with the world's most widely deployed proven, open standard, multi-application platform, selling complete systems and embedded sub-systems for smart grid, smart city and smart building applications. Our platform is embedded in more than 100 million devices, 35 million homes and 300,000 buildings and powers energy savings applications for smart grids, smart cities and smart buildings. We help our customers reduce operational costs, enhance satisfaction and safety, grow revenues and prepare for a dynamic future. More information about Echelon can be found at www.echelon.com.

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Echelon and 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 market acceptance of Echelon's technology by itself or combined with other applications or offerings, including offerings by Kapsch Smart Energy GmbH; the risk that Echelon's offerings by themselves or combined with other applications or offerings do not perform as designed or do not offer the expected benefits and savings; risks associated with international sales; the timing of orders and the possibility that pilot orders may not expand into full deployments; 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.

Contact:
Colleen Martell
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SOURCE Echelon Corporation