Silicon Valley Power Plugs Into Elster's EnergyAxis® Smart Grid Solution

RALEIGH, N.C., Dec. 15, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Elster (NYSE: ELT) announced today that Silicon Valley Power (SVP), the City of Santa Clara's municipal electric utility, has selected Elster's EnergyAxis® Smart Grid solution for deployment across its service area. As part of the "SVP Meter Connect" program, EnergyAxis will provide the utility with advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) to bring the environmental and economic benefits of the Smart Grid to businesses and residents of Santa Clara. Tropos Networks will provide the infrastructure for backhaul transfer of the data collected and managed by EnergyAxis.

"Serving the heart of the U.S. technology industry, SVP needed an advanced Smart Grid solution to ensure accurate, reliable and secure meter reading and data management," said Larry Owens, SVP manager of Customer Services. "Elster's proven track record of more than 4.5 million deployed EnergyAxis endpoints provides confidence that EnergyAxis will meet the rigorous standards of the SVP Meter Connect program. We selected Elster's EnergyAxis for its open IP standards and interoperable communications infrastructure; technology that will help us best support the needs of our customers," Owens added.

EnergyAxis is an end-to-end Smart Grid solution based on fully interoperable and public IP standards and is designed to provide a full spectrum of multi-technology components. The EnergyAxis Smart Grid solution will enable SVP to remotely read these advanced meters, quickly pinpoint and respond to power outages in real time and, eventually, let customers monitor and control their energy consumption. In addition, Elster's meters are auditable, a feature that enables SVP to quickly identify and address any technical or billing questions.

Following several months of testing, SVP will commence a phased rollout of the SVP Meter Connect program, beginning in 2011 with the local business community. In 2012, SVP will begin notifying residential customers of plans to replace existing mechanical meters with Elster's advanced meters. The SVP Meter Connect deployment is scheduled to be completed over a three-year period.

"Testing and validating for accuracy every step of the way are critically important to SVP and Elster, and we are confident we will be able to maintain our reliable, low-cost service during the deployment of the EnergyAxis Smart Grid solution," Owens said.

"The SVP Meter Connect program is the latest example of Elster's commitment to full interoperability, open public IP standards and a multi-technology approach to Smart Grid deployments," said Mark Munday, president and CEO of Elster Solutions. "SVP has engaged with Elster to build a successful and well-orchestrated Smart Grid project that will provide significant operational and customer service benefits, and we are conducting full-scale testing and validating to ensure accuracy, security and efficiency," Munday added.

EnergyAxis, a field-proven Smart Grid solution with more than 4.5 million endpoints deployed with utilities around the world, enables utilities to:

• Realize operational efficiencies;
• Conserve environmental and economic resources by reducing the losses in electricity, gas and water grids;
• 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 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 modules 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.

SOURCE Elster