Itron, Inc. ITRI announced the expansion of the partner ecosystem technology for its OpenWay Riva solution. This expansion will help Itron to address the industry requirements and have multiple options for technology suppliers for smart grid projects in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
Notably, Itron’s OpenWay Riva solution is the most advanced technology at present which help utilities to transform their smart grid communications and deploy new and highly innovative approaches to key grid operations and business challenges.
The OpenWay Riva ecosystem is the first smart-grid-by-design technology that features adaptive communications technology and distributed computing power which supports new smart grid applications. The technology will aid utilities to fulfill their smart grid needs and flexibility by incorporating multiple electricity meter solution vendors.
The solution also provides a unified device-level software platform for new smart grid applications that leverage high-performance communications and distributed computing power. This enables new approaches that significantly improve the accuracy and timeliness of smart grid applications such as outage detection and analysis, transformer load management and energy diversion detection.
To begin with, the expanded ecosystem will focus on the Austrian market, in collaboration with Kapsch BusinessCom and Kapsch Smart Energy, units of the Kapsch Group which is a leading ICT (Information and communications technology) service partner and Itron’s integration partner in Austria. Itron’s allies in this venture also include technology and solution suppliers Schrack Technik Energie, EMH Metering in association with Kamstrup, a leading supplier of intelligent energy and water metering solutions and Wasion Group Ltd.
The objective of the consortium is to supply OpenWay Riva-powered devices suited to global metering and Internet of Things telecommunication standards. The alliance will enable utilities in EMEA to take advantage of Itron’s OpenWay Riva solution and deploy a single network that incorporates two communications technologies – radio frequency (RF) and power line carrier (PLC).
Recently, Itron has been selected to provide its OpenWay Riva solution on the Tongan Islands in the South Pacific. Tonga Power will deploy OpenWay Riva solution to more than 20,000 customers on the main island as part of its smart island goals. After installation is complete, later this year, Itron will also provide managed services to Tonga Power for system management and maintenance of Itron's cloud-based services for data collection.
Itron, however, reduced its earnings guidance for 2015 mainly due to greater-than-expected weakness in the Gas business in EMEA. The expansion of partner ecosystem technology will help in offsetting the concern. Additionally, Itron has concluded discussions with several work councils in Europe regarding restructuring plans and expects the pace of activities to accelerate, which will certainly drive growth.
Liberty Lake, WA-based Itron Inc., along with its subsidiaries, is one of the principal technology providers to energy and water industries worldwide. It produces electricity, gas, water and heat meters, data collection and utility software solutions as well as various other associated metering products. The company provides its services to residential, commercial and industrial customers, along with transmission and distribution customers.
Itron currently carries a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell).
Some better-ranked stocks in the electrical test equipment sector include National Instruments Corp. NATI, Teradyne Inc. TER and Allegion plc Ordinary Shares ALLE. All these stocks carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
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