Silver Spring Names Exegin Technologies as Its ZigBee Partner

Silver Spring Networks on Thursday revealed the company behind its ZigBee-enabled smart meter communications — Vancouver-based Exegin Technologies Ltd.

Silver Spring, the high-profile startup that’s providing the communications and networking equipment for hundreds of thousands of smart meters being deployed by Pacific Gas & Electric, Florida Power & Light, American Electric Power and other utilities, has been on the ZigBee bandwagon for months.

That makes sense, since the protocol based on the 802.15.4 standard is emerging as a favorite for bringing communications from smart meters to in-home power monitoring and control equipment.

Being part of Silver Spring’s system puts Exegin in the smart grid spotlight. The companies have been working together since September, but on Thursday announced that Silver Spring was licensing Exegin’s ZigBee PRO protocol stack software for the ZigBee radios that are a part of Silver Spring’s network interface cards.

Those ZigBee radios are now going into the “vast majority� of the communications cards Silver Spring is putting in other vendors’ smart meters, James Pace, Silver Spring senior director of business development, said Thursday.

As of this week, PG&E had deployed more than 150,000 Silver Spring-enabled electric meters out of the million it plans to have in place by 2011, and Silver Spring hopes to see up to 2 million meters deployed by the end of this year, he said.

Other companies in Exegin’s line of business include Alektrona and Digi International. All three are members of the ZigBee Alliance, the industry group that has developed the “smart energy profile� version of the protocol for use in so-called “home area networks� — the hoped-for future realm of home energy displays, smart thermostats and appliances that can monitor power use and curtail it on the command of homeowners or utilities.

One reason Silver Spring chose Exegin, Pace said, was for its experience in “bridging and gateway technologies.� That’s important, because ZigBee is competing — or perhaps collaborating — with an alternative form of in-home communication that uses existing electrical wiring to carry data.

Companies working on power line communication include Echelon Corp. with its power line signaling technology, and a host of companies that are working on an alternative technology under the umbrella of the HomePlug Powerline Alliance.

In September, the ZigBee and HomePlug groups agreed to work together with a number of utilities to create a common application layer for both technologies.

Carrying data over power lines could make more sense for apartment buildings and other larger multi-family residences, where electric meters may be in the basement, too far away for ZigBee to carry. Then a gateway device could bridge that to ZigBee radios in individual apartments.

And Exegin’s experience in making devices like its ZigBee-to-Ethernet gateways could easily translate to making a ZigBee-to-HomePlug gateway, Pace said.

“There are a number of people playing with that technology,� he said.