Echelon Corporation International Success Recognized By U.S. Department of Commerce With Export Achievement Award
At A Separate Event, Chairman and CEO Ron Sege Recognized For His Leadership In Echelon's Global Growth By Greenbang Smart Technology Analyst Firm
Echelon Corporation has been honored with the U.S. Department of Commerce's Export Achievement Award. The Export Achievement Award is sponsored by the U.S. & Foreign Commercial Service, the agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce that works directly with U.S. companies to promote international trade and export growth, to recognize U.S. businesses that have achieved competitive success in international markets. U.S. Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren presented the award to Ron Sege, chairman and CEO of Echelon, in a November 28 ceremony held at San Jose State University in San Jose, California.
Echelon has long been a pioneer in energy control networking systems to improve the efficiency of energy distribution systems and to manage energy usage in an intelligent and dynamic fashion. Echelon is headquartered in Silicon Valley and generated more than 70% of its revenue in 2010 from outside the U.S."It is an honor for us to receive this prestigious award. As international opportunities continue to increase for Echelon, exporting has become a large part of our growth strategy," said Sege. "Our approach of targeting countries with immediate, critical energy conservation needs is proving very effective. Our flexible sales strategy of selling energy control networking systems, sub-systems, or components, based on regional needs, has led to important projects in Europe, Russia, Japan, Brazil and China. We are proud of what we’ve accomplished worldwide with our proven, open standard, multi-application solutions, and we could not have done it without the hard work and dedication of our employees and the support of the U.S. Department of Commerce and particularly the staff of the Silicon Valley office of the U.S. Commercial Service.""If America is to compete in the integrated global market of the future, it must do so through continuous innovation, and we must leverage our unique intellectual capital and entrepreneurial spirit to create the jobs of the future and reinvigorate our middle class," said Rep. Lofgren. "The capital of Silicon Valley is where the spirit of innovation drives our economy and succeeds like nowhere else in the world. Institutions like San Jose-based Echelon also embrace the global marketplace like no other region in the United States, which epitomizes Silicon Valley’s leadership in today’s global economy."As the energy industry rapidly shifts to a new era of rising costs, increased demand, variable supply and growing environmental concerns, utilities and commercial businesses worldwide must respond. These market forces are driving the need to make the electric distribution grid smarter and more dynamic. Echelon is leading the worldwide transformation of the electricity grid into an energy control network, connecting utilities to their customers, enabling networking of everyday devices, and providing customers with energy-aware homes and businesses with monitoring and control capabilities to react to conditions on the grid.Today, more than 1,000 of the world's most demanding utilities and commercial businesses are leveraging Echelon's innovations to propel them forward. Some recent projects include:Asia-Pacific- Changan City, Da Lingshan City, Qingdao City, Jinan City, Beijing and Shanghai, China are deploying Echelon-based systems totaling hundreds of thousands of street lights. By adding energy control networking to street lights, cities can cut their use of energy for lighting in half.
- Holley Metering Limited, which is expected to ship 10 million electricity meters into the China market and international markets in 2011, signed a commercial agreement under which Holley and Echelon will initially collaborate to develop advanced smart metering products that meet the stringent requirements for the vast China market. This will help ensure that China meets its aggressive goals for greenhouse gas emission reductions and energy efficiency.
- ITOCHU, a leading Echelon distributor and one of the largest Japanese corporations engaged in Smart Grid and Smart City projects, will deploy Echelon's energy control networking solution for a new intelligent street light system, the first system of its kind in Japan, to help reduce power consumption, increase safety and security, and to enable the City to achieve operational savings.
Europe- In Brussels, Belgium, the historic 100-year old Park Atrium office building deployed Echelon's building management system based on the open, interoperable LonWorks standard. The building's legacy systems were integrated on the open platform and new capabilities of real-time visualization, fault-detection, monitoring and control were gained – reducing the Park Atrium's energy usage by approximately 50 percent.
- Fortum Norway, the largest utility in Finland and a leading energy company in the Nordic countries, will deploy Echelon's smart metering system to 100,000 electricity customers to enable customers to dynamically monitor and manage their energy usage.
- The City of Oslo, Norway will deploy an Echelon infrastructure that controls all of the City's 65,000 streetlights to achieve significant energy and operational savings.
Latin America- To meet Brazil's ambitious public policy goals, Echelon is providing its smart metering sub-systems to ELO Sistemas Eletronicos (ELO), the leading supplier of digital electricity meters in Brazil, including power line control and communication technology and embedded firmware for smart meters.
Ron Sege Named as 2011 Greenbang Efficiency Award Winner
Echelon today also announced that its Chairman and CEO Ron Sege has been awarded a 2011 Efficiency Award by Greenbang, a smart technology and business analyst firm, in the Person of the Year category for his strong leadership in Echelon's innovation and growth globally despite a challenging economic environment. Now in their second year, the Greenbang awards highlight people, products and processes that are creating resource-saving efficiencies.