With the highest installed base market share of 95 per cent in Italy, 60 per cent in Denmark, 40 per cent in Sweden, the current largest deployment of 100,000 meters undertaken by Echelon in Norway and other projects in Finland and Austria have resulted in the company holding a cumulative share of about 81 percent in smart meter deployment until 2010.

"The Echelon Networked Energy Services (NES) system is the control networking infrastructure for the smart grid which enables intelligent distributed control applications and devices that deliver maximum reliability, survivability and responsiveness," remarks Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Neha Vikash. "Over 100 projects and deployments and numerous pilots with utilities around the world have proven that the NES system for smart metering delivers a solution with extremely high levels of reliability, accuracy, and security."

The NES system helps utilities reduce operating costs, provide expanded services and help energy users manage and reduce their overall energy use. It offers a highly flexible infrastructure that can be adapted to changing customer, operations, and regulatory needs.

Grid intelligence provided by the NES system includes line management intelligence wherein utilities can better monitor outages, reduce service restoration time, and verify that service has been restored. By measuring and detecting events related to voltage surges and sags, over-current conditions, phase changes, long and short outages, and total harmonic distortion, the system also provides information related to power quality.