Press release

Raleigh, North Carolina, United States, March 30, 2009 Elster Announces Support for ANSI C12.22 Open Communication Standard

Elster, a leader in smart metering and smart grid systems and solutions, today announced its support of C12.22, the newly ratified standard from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). The standard is fundamental to smart metering systems and foundational elements of an open and interoperable smart grid.

Elster has been instrumental in designing and supporting ANSI standards as led by Edward J. Beroset, a senior member of Elster’s product development staff and chairperson of the ANSI C12.22 working group. The ANSI C12.22 open standard defines how to transmit standardized tables of meter data across wired or wireless networks using various transports such as IP.

“The ratification of this standard demonstrates how critical it is for companies to collaborate to create interoperable products and systems in the utility industry,” said Mark Munday, president and CEO, Elster Electricity. “We view this as a significant step forward for the emerging smart grid technology market. It will help utilities in their efforts to deploy open and interoperable smart grid systems.”

This open standard can play a vital role in unifying the information collected from advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) systems and smart grid projects while allowing utilities to select the communication technologies that meet financial and strategic objectives across their service territories. Companies supporting the ANSI C12.22 standard include Elster, Itron and Trilliant, among others.

“One of the key issues facing utilities as they develop and deploy AMI and smart grid solutions is interoperability between the various system components,” said Munday. “This new standard will help facilitate seamless information exchange across systems regardless of the technology provider.”