Rural Smart Grid Summit: 'Absolutely Loving the Format'

FAJARDO, Puerto Rico, Oct. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- The Rural Smart Grid Summit (RSGS) has completed its first day and major vendors are extremely pleased with the intimate, business to business discussions with small groups of CEOs, GMs, and other leaders of over 70 rural electric utility cooperatives from across the United States.

"I'm absolutely loving the format," said Lisa Fennell, Solutions Director of Landis+Gyr, a global leader in smart metering technology. "The format is very intimate and we're hearing the perspectives of GMs of rural utilities including frank discussions about our competitors. I'm a fan."

Melanie Cook, general manager, communications technologies for GE's Digital Energy business, concurred, saying, "It's been great, a really good mix and discussion with coop leaders about requirements and needs. We've had lots of interesting exchanges about trends including electric vehicle charging."

The RSGS is an exclusive, invitation-only, fully paid event for the CEOs of seventy plus U.S. electric coops. The electric coops interact in small, intimate venues with Smart Grid technology executives. Senior level discussions take place that many times disclose future products and help create collaboration on future trends and needs.

"This is the perfect platform to start the process for vendors and utilities to create a path of solutions for the rural smart grid," said Scott E. Lee, CEO of IBEC, a leading provider of Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) technology. "You get to interact with decision makers, which is not ever afforded in other venues."

Amperion President and CEO Nachum Sadan, added, "Having a captive audience of utility heads in one location is very effective. We are very pleased with the Summit format because we have direct access to decision makers at the electric coops and information about the problems they are facing." Amperion is a provider of advance communications solutions to electric utilities.

The RSGS is a unique and intimate event between vendors and utility heads. The discussions at RSGS would never evolve out of the typical tradeshow, where hundreds of vendors sit at their booths. The Summit knocks down the barriers and removes the wasted volume.

GE's Digital Energy, IBM, IBEC, Landis+Gyr, Johnson Controls, Honeywell, ABB and AT&T are serving as major sponsors of the Rural Smart Grid Summit.

SOURCE Rural Smart Grid Summit