Schlumberger Announces Agreement to Expand Energy Management Solutions to Utility Industry

Schlumberger Resource Management Services (RMS), a business segment of Schlumberger Limited, has announced a license agreement with Comverge Technologies for power company wireless communications. A subsidiary of Data Systems & Software Comverge Technologies, is a global energy data communications and load control company with 4,000,000 energy customer point installations through over 400 utilities worldwide. The company provides end-to-end two-way communication solutions for energy-related data and load control, including automated meter reading, utility and/or customer controlled appliance cycling, outage detection, load profiling, home automation, environmental monitoring and distributed generation monitoring.

"This license agreement is yet another example of the expanding solution package Schlumberger is offering to its utility customers through our technology access program," said Remi St. Martin, General Manager, Systems. "Utilizing the recently acquired CellNet Data Systems' wireless communication technology, Schlumberger and Comverge will provide a new series of products that will help our customers more easily and accurately manage energy and thus, better compete in the current marketplace and the marketplace of the future."

Under the license, Comverge will incorporate the Schlumberger CellNet wireless RF communication technology into devices to provide two-way value-added endpoint products, such as gateway products, thermostat products and remote connect/disconnect devices. Currently, Schlumberger has contracts with 10 utilities including over 9 million points in North America that could leverage the technology developments enabled by this agreement.

Frank Magnotti, president of Comverge, said, "I am very pleased to team with Schlumberger, a company known for its unrivaled service offerings. This contract represents an exciting opportunity for Comverge to broaden its data communications portfolio and provide our products and services to customers that have elected the Schlumberger wireless communication systems. Teaming the Schlumberger system with Comverge's potent utility solutions technology opens the door to a significant customer base. We hope to leverage this relationship over time to offer additional technologies and products and to create value for Schlumberger and its customers."

Edited by Stephen Heiser