Echelon to Help Increase European Energy Efficiency with Intelligent Street Lighting(San Jose, CA - March 28, 2006) - Echelon Corporation (NASDAQ: ELON), a global networking company providing technology and solutions for controls, smart metering, and energy and environment management, today announced that it will participate in the E-Street initiative, a research group aimed at further developing a solution for reducing energy usage in outdoor lighting systems in the European Union (EU). E-Street, the Intelligent Road and Street Lighting panel, is comprised of the world's leading companies experienced in producing intelligent, networked streetlight systems that can provide as much as a 70% reduction in energy usage. E-Street is part of the EU's Intelligent Energy Europe program designed to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy sources. Echelon has been the world's leader in control networking technology for over a decade and is a pioneer in the space of M2M infrastructure required for intelligent streetlight applications. The E-Street initiative will play a pivotal role in determining EU standards and legislation for managed outdoor lighting systems. "Extending the power of control networks to streetlight systems not only allows cities to drastically reduce energy and maintenance costs, but this increased efficiency also reduces energy waste, correspondingly reducing CO2 emissions affiliated with energy production," said Henk Walraven, managing director, Central Europe Middle East and Africa, Echelon Corporation. "A smart, networked streetlight system offers immediate and substantial cost savings, and the overall return on investment time is quite impressive, allowing cities to quickly see benefits from the new system." Traditional streetlight systems use mechanical ballasts that are either fully on or off. Such ballasts waste energy because they remain on at a constant light level throughout the night, causing streetlights to account for the largest percentage of energy usage of a town and contributing to CO2 emissions worldwide due to inefficient energy consumption. These older systems are expensive and cumbersome to maintain, relying on resident notification or drive-bys to determine which lights are no longer functioning properly. Furthermore, because such systems are always at maximum light output when they are on, they are a chief cause of light pollution - a concern in growing urban areas where night time lighting levels continue to intensify. Applying Echelon's control networking technology to public lighting systems transforms them into dynamic networks that can reduce energy use, increase public safety through intelligent yet invisible interactions with the surrounding environment, reduce maintenance and long-term system costs, and can act as the infrastructure for additional beneficial applications like intelligent traffic routing. Such systems leverage a proven architecture and network design approach – the same that has been successfully deployed in over 27 million Italian homes and tens of thousands of commercial building automation systems worldwide. Echelon's approach provides an underlying controls platform based on international standards from ANSI, CEN and IEEE thus allowing a market for manufacturers of street lighting components and systems to compete in an open and fair market for municipal contracts. Furthermore, municipalities can leverage the street lighting communications infrastructure investment by easily adding non-lighting devices. About Intelligent Street Lighting Systems Using Echelon's Technology A key energy saving feature is the ability to dim some or all streetlights when traffic is light, for example, in the middle of the night. Dimming levels can be adjusted according to date or special events, or light levels can be easily increased under adverse weather conditions or high traffic density to make travel safer. Intelligent dimming reduces inventory costs by extending lamp life, lowers labor costs associated with frequent lamp replacement, and can mitigate liabilities associated with accidents that might be attributed to a lamp that has failed and has not been replaced. About The Intelligent Energy – Europe Program and the E-Street Initiative The E-Street group consists of approximately 40 people from 11 countries, and includes representatives from large cities, road authorities and several manufacturers of luminaires, ballasts and software. The goal for the initiative is to promote and lead the way in managed outdoor lighting for cities and road authorities in Europe, including the assessment and review of energy savings for different settings (retrofit and new installations), provoking faster development of intelligent streetlight legislation and standards, and the replication of successful installations throughout Europe. Further information regarding the Intelligent Energy – Europe program and the E-Street initiative can be found at http://europa.eu.int/comm/energy/intelligent/index_en.html and http://www.nois.no/www/technocad/light/. About Echelon Corporation Echelon is based in San Jose, California, with international offices in China, France, Germany, Italy, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, The Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Further information regarding Echelon can be found at http://www.echelon.com. ### Echelon, LonWorks, i.LON, and the Echelon logo are registered trademarks of Echelon Corporation registered in the United States and other countries. Pyxos is a trademark of Echelon Corporation in the United States and other countries. Other product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners. This press release may contain statements relating to future plans, events or performance. Such statements may involve risks and uncertainties, including risks associated with uncertainties pertaining to the timing and level of customer orders and demand for Echelon products and services in outdoor lighting and other applications in the European Union and elsewhere; risks that these products do not perform as designed, and that liability may accrue as a result of the use of Echelon products and services in outdoor lighting applications; risks associated with the any changes that may occur in the European Union directives regarding outdoor lighting, safety or other policies, and acceptance by local, regional and European Union government agencies of LonWorks based solutions; the growth of the LonWorks industry; and other risks identified in Echelon's SEC filings. Actual results, events and performance may differ materially. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. Echelon undertakes no obligation to release publicly the result of any revisions to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. Contact Information
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