Digi International, a leading developer of wireless M2M solutions for OEMs, has recently announced the launch of “Smart Grid Now” bundles. The “Smart Grid Now” bundles makes it easy and cost effective for utilities to conduct an energy management pilot program and offer a broad range of new energy efficiency services to their customers.

The bundles include the technology and infrastructure necessary to conduct a Smart Grid pilot program in areas with Advanced Meter Reading (AMR) or Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) networks in place. Bundles for 25 users start at USD $2,500 which includes iDigi cloud based services.

The “Smart Grid Now” smart energy bundles includes, ConnectPort X2 for Smart Energy gateway with Smart Energy 1.0 profile certification to enable a Home Area Network; 10/100 Ethernet for easily connecting to residential home router; ERT/Smart Energy Bridge wirelessly connects ERTbased AMR metering systems to share utility usage data with devices on the Smart Energy network; Certified ERT radio design used under Itron ERT license with support for all ERT “bubble-up” utility meters; and iDigi cloud solution for device management and ERT/Ethernet Gateway (News - Alert) SE Range Extenders application integration.

The “Smart Grid Now” bundles enable utilities to offer a broad range of demand-side management services with or without Smart Meter deployments, and are available in two bundles, the Smart Energy (SE) bundle for AMI networks and the AMR Plus bundle. The bundles include 25 ConnectPort Smart Energy Gateways, iDigi cloud service and iPhone as well as Android (News - Alert) applications, as well as additional 25 ERT/Ethernet Bridges which makes real-time AMR/ERT metering data available to an energy service provider via broadband.

The pilot bundles enables utilities to connect their customers to a broad range of Digi X-Grid partner solutions and support ZigBee Smart Energy certified thermostats from Carrier, Energate, Computime and Radio Thermostat Company of America. Digi also provides open architecture solution that supports numerous innovative energy service application providers.

In a press release, the Senior Vice President of Global Sales and Marketing, Digi International (News - Alert), Larry Kraft, said, “Utilities are faced with numerous regulatory and internal business issues when running a Smart Grid pilot program. We have tens of thousands of residential energy gateways deployed in real-world Smart Grid applications. Our cost-effective Smart Grid Now bundles make it easy for utilities to take the next step in Smart Grid deployment and engage consumers in real-time energy decisions.”