Successful Rochester, MN Public Utilities Field Test
BROADBAND ENERGY NETWORKS INC. DEMONSTRATES UTILITY APPLICATIONS FOR AN INTELLIGENT ELECTRIC GRID

UPPER DARBY, PA, December 21, 2004 – Broadband Energy Networks Inc. has successfully demonstrated the use of its UNI-PLEX™ Utility Automation platform to integrate Utility Applications including remote meter reading, electric utility demand response and customer information display with a broadband-over-power-line (BPL) network – to create an Intelligent Electric Grid.

The field test was held as part of a utility BPL technology pilot conducted by Rochester Public Utilities (RPU), a municipal utility serving more than 100,000 residents in Rochester, MN. The demonstration of Broadband Energy’s Utility Applications for BPL – including Demand Response, where the utility is enabled to automatically reduce end-user demand during periods of peak use, thereby avoiding blackouts – was conducted in collaboration with Global Energy Partners LLC, of Lafayette, CA, as the Market-Driven Demand Response applied research program for the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI).

“The field test confirmed that the Broadband Energy UNI-PLEX system can enable utilities to more effectively communicate with remote electric meters and to monitor and control major electrical devices, such as air conditioners, pumps, motors and electric hot-water heaters in customers’ facilities,” explained Larry Silverman, president of Philadelphia area-based Broadband Energy Networks. “Broadband Energy’s technology maximizes the value of the utilities’ existing infrastructure,” he continued, “by using that framework to provide real-time information that can translate into increased efficiency, savings and reliability, for utilities as well as for their customers.

“The successful RPU trial is the latest by our company to demonstrate the viability of an intelligent electric grid with BPL,” Silverman noted, “and certainly justifies giving serious consideration to a BPL-enabled smart distribution grid for utilities and their customers. The smart grid can be used to monitor and automate the control of the electric system,” he said, “but the intelligence can also be applied to other essential resources, including water, gas, air quality monitoring, facility access and other services that are used in commercial and industrial facilities and homes.”

An October 5 report by Sanford C. Bernstein & Co, LLC noted that “BPL technology will allow utilities to monitor and control their distribution grids in real time – a first in the 120-year history of the industry.”

“That statement in the ‘Bernstein’ report,” Silverman emphasized, “reflects the goals of our UNI-PLEX Utility Automation hardware, software and managed services solutions.”

Broadband Energy Networks has conducted successful utility automation projects beginning in the late 1990s, and will soon launch a similar commercial and residential project in New York State.

In the upcoming pilot sponsored by New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), Broadband Energy, in combination with ECONnergy Energy Company, Inc. (Spring Valley, NY) and Applied Energy Group (Hauppauge, NY) will conduct and manage a demonstration for the state authority’s time-sensitive electric pricing and demand response program. The project is being conducted in the service territories of Consolidated Edison Company of New York (serving New York City, the five boroughs, and Westchester County) and Orange and Rockland Utilities, Inc. (serving southeastern New York State and adjacent sections of northern New Jersey and northeastern Pennsylvania).

In the NYSERDA project, monitoring and control networks will be installed in businesses and homes to track energy consumption and control air conditioners, pool pumps, motors, electric hot water heaters and other energy-consuming devices, varying their operation in response to changing electricity price and demand, and user schedules.

The purpose of the two-year funded demonstration is to confirm customer acceptance and satisfaction with systems for businesses and homes that will automatically vary the temperature of the space as well as the operating pattern of other electrical devices in response to information about user demand and the price of electricity.

The NYSERDA demonstration project is scheduled to be launched in the spring of 2005.

UNI-PLEX is a trademark of Broadband Energy Networks Inc.