DistribuTECH 2008 Demo Showcases Energy-Saving Capabilities of IP-Based Wireless...

DistribuTECH 2008 Demo Showcases Energy-Saving Capabilities of IP-Based Wireless Home Networks

Arch Rock Demo of 'Home Area Networks' (HANs) Shows How Utilities,
Consumers Can Cooperate to Control Power Usage
TAMPA, Fla.--(Business Wire)--A group of industry-leading vendors at DistribuTECH 2008 are
demonstrating how the technology underlying the Internet and
ubiquitous in enterprise information systems will create the
foundation for powerful home area networks (HANs) that can help
consumers save on energy costs.

The demonstration illustrates how IP-based wireless sensor
networking, "smart" metering, thermostat devices and energy services
management software together form a seamless end-to-end system for
utilities to deliver sustainable demand-response programs to achieve
peak-load reductions and efficiency while providing consumers greater
awareness of and control over their energy usage.

The demo is being conducted by wireless sensor network provider
Arch Rock Corporation and includes products from Arch Rock, "smart
grid" infrastructure provider Silver Spring Networks, and thermostat
provider Radio Thermostat Corporation of America (RTCA).

The demonstration showcases a live wireless sensor network
implementation of the recently approved IETF 6LoWPAN (RFC 4944)
standard, which defines how IP communication is conducted over
low-power wireless personal-area networks. Arch Rock in March 2007
introduced the first commercial implementation of 6LoWPAN, which
enables wireless IP data transmission over the IEEE 802.15.4 low-power
radio for devices with limited space, power and memory, such as the
thermostats and other sensing devices.

In the demonstration, an RTCA or Invensys thermostat employs an
Arch Rock IP 6LoWPAN module to communicate wirelessly with an in-home
energy control device, which in turn communicates with a server on the
utility Smart Grid network. This enables the utility grid operator to
send a variety of pricing, load-shed and usage signals to the energy
control device, which responds by changing the thermostat's set point,
resulting in immediate energy reduction. All control messages are
confirmed to the network, delivering assured reliability to the
operator and the consumer.

Arch Rock CEO Roland Acra said, "Developments such as 6LoWPAN have
exploded the myth that IP is too 'heavyweight' a mechanism for
communicating with lights, meters, thermostats and other low-power,
low-bandwidth devices. As utilities replace their legacy
infrastructure, nothing makes more sense than to create home networks
around the IP standard, which has stood the test of time and can scale
to support billions of devices. This standard will be a key factor in
emerging utility-driven demand-management architectures that will
enable far greater control of energy at both the provider and consumer
levels."

"Utilities around the world are driving the implementation of a
fully-integrated Smart Grid to increase efficiency, reduce
environmental impacts and improve profitability," said Eric
Dresselhuys, vice president of Silver Spring Networks. "Only IP - the
worldwide standard in networking - can deliver the proven scale,
reliability and security required to make the Smart Grid real."

Dan Goodman, chief technical officer of RTCA, said, "Supporting IP
networking through the 6LoWPAN standard will help RTCA significantly
broaden the range of utility and end-user customers we can serve. Arch
Rock's innovative implementation of 6LoWPAN allowed us to quickly
bring our first 'IP enabled' thermostat solutions to market."

About Arch Rock Corporation

Arch Rock is a pioneer in open-standards-based wireless sensor
network technology. The company's products, which gather data from the
physical world and integrate it into the enterprise IT infrastructure
using IP networking and web services, are used in environmental
monitoring, tracking and logistics, industrial automation and control.
Arch Rock's founders, while at the University of California-Berkeley
and Intel Research, did seminal research and development work on WSNs,
creating three generations of wireless sensor nodes, mesh networking
protocols, and the leading operating system for sensor networks. For
more information, visit http://www.archrock.com.

AR14

Arch Rock Corporation
Brian Bohlig, 415-992-3735
bbohlig@archrock.com
or
Ulevich & Orrange, Inc.
Janis Ulevich, 650-329-1590
ulevich@u-o.com

Copyright Business Wire 2008