Echelon and Energy Management
Smart, networked energy: A smart and sustainable conservation plan.
We believe in smart energy: Energy that's managed in order to optimize its generation, delivery, and quality. Energy that interacts with grid-aware devices to manage consumption.
Device networks offer the best way to manage and control energy use. They not only make energy smart, but also make the grid smarter. That's because device networks can save energy transparently, without any inconvenience to end users.
Smart energy is at work in the streetlights of Oslo, Norway; in homes in Italy; in buildings all over the world, and in millions of homes connected to the smart grid. It's made possible through our off-the-shelf LonWorks® based products and the thousands of products built on our technology, and by our NES System smart grid infrastructure for metering.
Built-in Energy Awareness
Instead of creating energy-specific technology, Echelon and its customers add energy-saving capabilities into every LonWorks network and device. Networks of LonWorks devices, such as a smart building control system, dramatically reduce building operation costs, improve safety, and provide convenience — everything you'd expect from a smart building. And yet these devices offer much more. Each LonWorks device can be controlled so you can maximize your energy efficiency. Energy-awareness is built into every LonWorks device and network. That's smart energy.
Echelon is the only company in the world whose technology is enabling smart energy solutions across such a wide range of markets, including commercial buildings, smart homes, industrial plants, mining operations, schools, streetlights, warehouses, electric vehicle chargers, solar farms, and advanced metering infrastructures. Our two main product lines — the NES Systemsmart grid infrastructure for advanced metering and the LonWorks infrastructure productsfor control networking — are the cornerstones of successful energy management solutions in utilities, municipalities, and buildings and homes.
The Smart City
After more than 20 years of innovation, the smart city is becoming a reality. Our products are already in use in many things that make a city smarter, greener, and better:
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Almost every application in a smart city can be used, or is already in use, to increase energy efficiency and decrease operating costs.
Managing Energy Around the World
Echelon's networking technology forms the underpinnings for an advanced metering infrastructure that serves over 27 million homes in Italy. Our NES Systemfor smart metering was developed using the expertise we gained from that project and from our strategic acquisitions. As of late 2009, more than 1.8 million NES smart meters have shipped. Advanced utilities are already saving millions per year using the NES System and have begun extending the NES System as a smart grid infrastructure by adding water, gas, and heat meters; in-home displays; and load controllers.
Our LonWorks platformis the underlying control technology in hundreds of thousands of commercial buildings worldwide. Most save at least 20 percent of their energy use, as a result. Our technology controls China's high-speed trains and New York City’s public schools, and keeps babies safe in over 900 maternity wards. LonWorks technology even made Beijing's Bird's Nest Stadium at the 2008 Olympics more energy-efficient.
Even solar, wind, hydro, and other clean energy sources can be operated and managed more efficiently through the use of LonWorks networks and our i.LON SmartServer.
In March 2009, Echelon introduced the next-generation of the LonWorks platform, LonWorks 2.0. Incorporating the latest technology in chip and transceiver designs, LonWorks 2.0 accelerates the creation of energy-aware products for markets that have either no controls or severe price pressure. With LonWorks 2.0 Smart Transceivers, Neuron Chips, development tools, and installation tools, control vendors have everything they need to create higher-performance, more capable, and more cost-effective control solutions.
Our i.LON SmartServersact as intelligent segment controllers in the world's most advanced, energy-aware street lighting systems, including the system in Oslo, Norway, which has reduced the city’s lighting energy use by 62 percent. The world's most advanced street lighting systems use the SmartServer as the segment controller and IP connection device, coupled with smart luminaires that are integrated with power line smart transceivers. The luminaires report energy use, potential lamp failures, burn hours, and more. Each is individually controlled and managed through a city's software management system.
As a versatile smart energy manager, the SmartServeris the key infrastructure device for making buildings energy-aware, for powering your enterprise energy management strategy, and for connecting to high-value remote assets. SmartServers use any IP connection to present information from in-premise devices or networks as straightforward XML that any Web services-based software can use, and just as importantly, any IT department can manage.
