Itron and Digi International Partner to Develop Smart Grid Applications
Partnership Builds Upon Foundation of OpenWay® by Itron to Enable Various Distribution Automation Applications
SAN DIEGO — DistribuTECH 2009 — February 3, 2009 - Itron Inc. (NASDAQ: ITRI) and Digi International (NASDAQ: DGII) announced today their collaboration to enable utilities to remotely monitor and control distribution automation (DA) devices utilizing the OpenWay advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) network by Itron. The agreement further enhances the electric utility industry's investment in OpenWay, and expands upon Digi's comprehensive family of Drop-in Networking connectivity solutions.
The combination of Digi's ConnectPort® X gateway with OpenWay will allow devices like capacitor banks, reclosures and metering products to communicate. This can reduce equipment and operational costs, enabling utilities to automate and control a larger number of grid points. This will also increase reliability, efficiency and security of the electric grid and enhance the business justification for AMI deployment. The gateway technology will be built upon industry standards such as distributed network protocol (DNP) and American National Standards Institute (ANSI) C12.22.
"Digi complements OpenWay by bridging common technology standards toward the advancement of Smart Grid adoption," said Russ Vanos, Itron vice president of marketing. "We're thrilled to expand Itron's growing portfolio of Smart Grid solutions with Digi's industry-leading expertise in device networking."
OpenWay is an AMI solution that utilizes smart electricity meters and advanced two-way communication networks between the utility and each meter. OpenWay delivers operational efficiency, empowers all customers to participate in energy management and conservation, and is often the first milestone in connecting utilities to the Smart Grid.
Digi provides IP connectivity over Ethernet, WiFi, and cellular network connections, and has successfully connected to equipment from leading DA providers for more than 20 years, with equipment installed by over 100 utilities. By adding OpenWay connectivity options, Digi will provide the industry's most flexible suite of Smart Grid solutions available.
"Digi's Drop-in Networking architecture was designed to accommodate a wide range of industry standards," said Larry Kraft, senior vice president of global sales and marketing, Digi International. "Leveraging Itron's standards-based OpenWay solution will further strengthen our ability to establish long-lasting partnerships with utilities, distribution automation equipment providers and applications integrators."
Digi's Drop-in Networking family includes the ConnectPort X family of gateways and Digi's popular XBee® family of radio modules. This enables the gateway to connect wirelessly to local devices using a wide variety of radio protocols including ZigBee® to maximize the flexibility of Smart Grid architectures.
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