Based outside of Spokane, WA, but with a business presence in 120 countries, Itron is the quiet, global giant in the state’s cleantech sector—and a key part of the Pacific Northwest’s cluster of smart grid businesses.
Philip Mezey took the helm of Itron at the start of the year, guiding a company in an enormous marketplace of 2.6 billion electric, gas, and water meters worldwide. “Fewer than 10 percent of them have been automated in any way,” he says, alluding to the massive opportunity in an interview with Xconomy.
“There are really good reasons that we would want to connect our electric, gas, and water meters—to have the utility and the customer understand how and when we’re going to use energy and water, because there are significant inefficiencies built into the market of not knowing.”
Itron just posted 2012 revenue of $2.2 billion, down about 10 percent from 2011, but swung to a $108.3 million profit, from a half-billion dollar loss the year earlier.
Read the entire story at the source: Ben Romano, Xconomy, February 19, 2013.