Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Itron Links With Cisco On Smart Grid Effort

Liberty Lake, Washington-based smart meter maker Itron and networking giant Cisco announced today that the two are in a strategic alliance focused on the smart grid. According to the firms, they will collaborate on a standards-based, secure technology for implementing IPv6 on field area communications networks, focused on smart metering, intelligent distribution automation and interfaces to the customer premise. The two said the effort will help provide a consistent and interoperable way to communicate between components and the smart grid. Financial aspects of the strategic alliance were not announced. The two said, under the terms of the agreement, that Itron will license and embed Cisco's IP technology within its OpenWay meters, and distribute Cisco networking equipment and software as part of its smart meter deployments.