Itron Executive Reaffirms Interoperability Standards

Itron announced that its chief executive officer, Malcolm Unsworth, during a meeting with Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, has reaffirmed embracing interoperability standards as being essential to the deployment of Smart Grid technologies

The announcement was made in conjunction with smart grid standards workshops being conducted by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) in Washington, D.C. Itron supports NIST coordination efforts and is participating in the workshops this week.

Unsworth said, "Our worldwide leadership and familiarity with smart metering and the rapidly emerging smart grid provides us with a tremendous amount of knowledge and experience, especially concerning open standards and interoperability. As a result, Itron will be fully extending IP support within its market-leading advanced metering solution, OpenWay, down to the edge device to support smart grid applications beyond AMI. This, in conjunction with the use of the ANSI C12.22 and Zigbee Smart Energy standards, and other applicable standards to be defined through the NIST initiative will ensure full implementation of the smart grid vision."

Don Cortez, CenterPoint Energy division vice president of Regulated Operations Technology, said, "We are pleased to see Itron's continued leadership in ongoing standards discussions. The ability to easily incorporate multiple standards and updates into our existing investment is important to our concept that systems should be able to support any future requirements mandated by the market."

Itron is a technology provider to the global energy and water industries.

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