Press release

Raleigh, North Carolina, United States, January 29, 2009 ABB and Elster Announce Innovative Smart Grid Loss Detection Application

Elster, a leader in smart metering and smart grid systems and solutions and ABB, a global leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve their performance, today announce the development of a new loss detection application permitting utilities to operate their network more efficiently by pinpointing system losses or loads that are not metered.

The loss detection application will be available as part of ABB’s FeederAll™, a distribution and planning analysis tool, and will incorporate time-synchronized metering data from Elster’s EnergyAxis® System for AMI. The result is a powerful, easy-to-use graphical analysis tool that aggregates endpoint meter data along the distribution network, allowing utilities to identify and isolate suspected system loss locations.

Elster Senior Vice President David G. Hart said, “This is a very exciting time in the utility industry. Our Advanced Grid Infrastructure (AGI) Initiative pilots have been very successful, and we look forward to our first commercial product releases early this year. These products, coupled with our field-proven EnergyAxis System, will certainly help utilities realize their vision for a smart grid.”

“ABB is committed to developing a modern smart grid and AMI plays an important role,” said ABB network management marketing director Hormoz Kazemzadeh. “The opportunity to work with Elster on the integration of the loss detection application has resulted in new innovative solutions for utilities. This is one of the first applications to leverage AMI data for improving network reliability and efficiency. We are very excited to have developed this solution as part of the AGI Initiative.”