PALO ALTO, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 01/29/13 -- AutoGrid Systems, a leader in Big Data Analytics for the electricity and energy industry, and Silver Spring Networks, a leading networking platform and solutions provider for smart energy networks, today announced a strategic partnership to jointly develop the Silver Spring UtilityIQ™ Demand Optimizer solution, powered by AutoGrid, to enable utilities, grid operators, service providers, and large power consumers to implement traditional and advanced demand response and demand side management programs quickly, securely and cost-effectively. Under this agreement, Silver Spring Networks is reselling AutoGrid's technology and integrating it into the newly announced Silver Spring UtilityIQ™ Demand Optimizer solution, an innovative demand response optimization and management offering. Working closely together as part of the Silver Spring Partner Program, this solution combines the compatibility, proven reliability and security of Silver Spring's standards-based Smart Energy Platform with the forecasting and optimization technology of AutoGrid.

"We are delighted to be working with Silver Spring, a true pioneer in smart grid technologies. Utilities, electric service providers, and their customers want to take advantage of demand side management technologies to reduce electricity cost and improve system reliability. The challenge has been the cost, capital and hard work needed to implement and manage these programs. By pre-integrating with Silver Spring Networks proven networking platform we are able to significantly reduce the time, cost and risk of implementing demand response while simultaneously increasing the overall yield and effectiveness of these programs," said Dr. Amit Narayan, founder and CEO of AutoGrid.

"We are proud to combine AutoGrid and Silver Spring's innovations to deliver this new demand response optimization and management solution," said Matt Smith, head of the Demand Side Management business at Silver Spring Networks. "Silver Spring's proven networking platform connects more than 13 million homes and businesses worldwide, and we are excited to extend innovative new demand management solutions to our customers atop that platform."

The new Silver Spring UtilityIQ™ Demand Optimizer solution helps utilities manage peak load, implement real-time demand response initiatives, and optimize load across all curtailment programs and customer segments. Combining Big Data analytics, Internet-scale cloud computing and open standards, leveraging existing investment in AMI networks, the Silver Spring UtilityIQ Demand Optimizer solution drastically reduces the cost of implementing demand side management programs while significantly increasing the energy yield from these programs.

Silver Spring's demand side management solutions are also at the heart of Oklahoma Gas & Electric's (OG&E) SmartHours initiative. Silver Spring is expanding the scope of its existing solution with OG&E by deploying the Silver Spring UtilityIQ Demand Optimizer solution to further enable OG&E customers to leverage dynamic pricing and encourage them to shift their energy use to off-peak hours.

The Silver Spring UtilityIQ Demand Optimizer solution, powered by AutoGrid, delivers fully integrated Demand Response Management capabilities including:

• A Unified View of All Available Resources Across All Programs. The solution allows utilities and service providers to view available capacity across all customer segments, load types, geographic locations, and programs from a single dashboard. The system supports all variations of traditional direct load control, critical peak pricing, variable pricing, and peak-time rebate.
• Real-Time Load Forecasting and Event Monitoring. Advanced machine learning techniques generate highly accurate real-time predictions of individual loads, response to load shed requests or price signals.
• Comprehensive Networking and Communications. Supports communication and dispatch to any device, over any channel of communication including over Silver Spring's Smart Energy Platform, broadband internet and cellular.
• Broad Ecosystem of DR Field Devices. Supports a wide ecosystem of devices and all commonly used industry standards such as OpenADR 1.0 and 2.0, SEP 1.x, as well as a number of other proprietary and legacy protocols.
• Powerful Optimization. Provides dispatch optimization across disparate DR programs and systems, such as load control, time of use, and price response, among others to improve the overall yield and effectiveness of the programs.
• Powerful Measurement, Verification, Analytics and Reporting. Provides a large library of reports for accurately calculating and comparing event and program performances across any customer or program attributes by analyzing actual consumption data from the smart meters immediately on completion of the event.
• High Security, Reliability and Scalability. Customers gain the benefits of enhanced security, reliability and privacy that they have come to expect from Silver Spring Network's high standards of deployment. Using a highly scalable cloud-based architecture the system can support millions of connections and petabytes of data.

About AutoGrid
Founded in 2011, AutoGrid is dedicated to bringing the power of Big Data, predictive analytics and Internet scale computational techniques to the production and consumption of electricity. Serving utilities of all sizes, grid operators, electricity retailers, ESCO services companies, and end-users, AutoGrid develops and markets services that both help lower costs and improve reliability of the electricity supply chain. For more, please see our website or contact us.

About Silver Spring Networks
Silver Spring Networks is a leading networking platform and solutions provider for smart energy networks. With its pioneering IPv6 networking platform, Silver Spring has connected more than 13 million homes and businesses throughout the world with the goal of achieving greater energy efficiency for the planet. Silver Spring's innovative products enable utilities to gain efficiencies, integrate renewable energy sources, and empower customers to monitor and manage energy consumption. Silver Spring Networks is used by major utilities around the globe including Baltimore Gas & Electric, CitiPower & Powercor, Commonwealth Edison, CPFL Energia, Florida Power & Light, Jemena Electricity Networks Limited, Oklahoma Gas & Electric, Pacific Gas & Electric, and Pepco Holdings, Inc. among others. For more information please visit www.silverspringnet.com.