Reliant Energy Joins ZigBee Alliance Board of Directors

Innovative Utility Strengthens Alliance’s Focus on Energy

San Ramon, Calif. – Dec. 19, 2008 – The ZigBee Alliance, a global ecosystem of companies creating wireless solutions for use in energy management, commercial and consumer applications, announced today that Reliant Energy, Inc. is now a Promoter level member and the newest member of the ZigBee Alliance Board of Directors.

Reliant Energy, one of the nation’s top retail electric providers in Texas and one of the largest independent power producers, has been a ZigBee Participant member since 2007.

“As an enabling technology for the Smart Grid, ZigBee Smart Energy products bring a new dimension to the way customers can interact with their energy provider,” said Jason Few, senior vice president, residential and Smart Energy at Reliant Energy. “Reliant Energy recognized the opportunity to provide leadership to the ZigBee organization and made the commitment to become a Promoter. ZigBee Smart Energy products will help Reliant Energy customers use less, spend less and emit less. Reliant’s Smart Energy solutions leveraging ZigBee will strengthen our customer relationships.”

Reliant is the first competitive electricity provider to become a Promoter member. They join Ember Corporation, Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., Honeywell, Huawei Technologies, Itron Inc., Landis+Gyr, Mitsubishi Electric, Motorola, Philips, Samsung, Schneider Electric, Siemens, STMicroelectronics, Tendril, Inc. and Texas Instruments on the ZigBee Alliance Board of Directors.

“The ZigBee Alliance welcomes the additional support, leadership and insight Reliant Energy brings to ZigBee,” said Bob Heile, chairman of the ZigBee Alliance. ”Reliant has a wealth of experience in the energy business. That experience will play a key role in furthering the rapid adoption of ZigBee Smart Energy. ZigBee Smart Energy has quickly become the leading standard for utilities implementing new home area networks because of unprecedented cooperation and development support from utilities and their suppliers.”

About Reliant Energy
Reliant Energy, Inc. (NYSE:RRI) based in Houston, provides electricity and energy services to retail and wholesale customers in the United States. The company provides service to approximately 1.8 million retail electricity customers primarily in Texas, including residential and small business customers. Reliant also serves commercial, industrial, governmental and institutional customers in Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.

The company is one of the largest independent power producers in the nation with more than 14,000 megawatts of power generation capacity across the United States. These strategically located generating assets use natural gas, fuel oil and coal. For more information, visit http://www.reliant.com. Reliant Energy routinely posts all important information on its Web site.

ZigBee: Wireless Control That Simply Works
ZigBee is the global wireless language connecting dramatically different devices to work together and enhance everyday life. The ZigBee Alliance is a non-profit association of more than 300 member companies driving development of ZigBee wireless technology. The Alliance promotes world-wide adoption of ZigBee as the leading wirelessly networked, sensing and control standard for use in energy, home, commercial and industrial areas. For more information, visit: www.ZigBee.org.

[Click Banner To Learn More]

[Home Page]  [The Automator]  [About]  [Subscribe ]  [Contact Us]