U-SNAP Alliance launched to extend smart grid to energy aware consumer products

Industry alliance to develop “Home-to-Grid” standard for consumer products

Washington, DC. (April 29, 2009) – A group of utility industry leaders representing utilities and manufacturers formed the U-SNAP Alliance to create a low cost connector standard to enable consumer products to communicate with any vendor's smart meter.

“This is the equivalent of USB for consumer products,” said Barry Haaser of the U-SNAP Alliance. “This important industry standard allows utilities to continue smart meter deployments, while enabling a new generation of products to connect to smart meters by simply inserting a U-SNAP card into the product.”

“The U-SNAP standard will free manufacturers from having to create derivatives of standard products in order to support the various communication protocols used in utility smart meter deployments,” said Jon Rappaport of Sensus Metering Systems. “The standard will allow utilities to select the smart meter that best fits its metering requirements and also have confidence that that same meter, with a code download, can meet its future needs. Consumers will be able to purchase a new generation of energy aware products that can react automatically to changes in electricity prices and availability, allowing them to use energy more efficiently.”

The U-SNAP Alliance is accepting members interested in developing or supporting the U-SNAP standard.

About the U-SNAP Alliance
The U-SNAP Alliance is an open industry association developing an industry standard for connecting energy aware consumer products with smart meters. The Alliance will create and publish a standard, establish testing and certification procedures for product conformance and educate consumers, utilities and vendors on the benefits of the standard. Alliance membership is comprised of utilities, manufacturers, consultants and other parties interested in developing or deploying the standard. For more information, or to find out how to join the Alliance, please visit www.usnap.org
 

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