Liberty Lake, Wash., December 15, 2011 — Itron, Inc. and Panasonic announced a partnership agreement to design and deliver gas smart metering solutions to utilities in Europe.
Given the E.U. target requiring that at least 80 percent of homes have a smart meter fitted by 2020 and the growing public concern for energy use reduction, the demand for gas smart metering solutions for residential applications is expected to grow rapidly.
In response to this, Itron has partnered with Panasonic to collaborate on the development of its next generation smart gas meter. With its next gas meter release, Itron will leverage Panasonic's ultrasonic sensor technology to enhance its new residential static meters. It will provide utilities planning for large-scale smart meter deployments in Europe with a solution that offers a highly accurate and reliable communicating metering solution.
Additionally, Itron and Panasonic are working together to integrate key hardware electronics operating on low power radio into Itron's advanced gas data collection solution.
