ABB Introduces New ION 8300 Revenue-Class Energy and Power Quality Meter; New Meter Offers Affordable Price with Advanced Time-of-Use and Sag/Swell Features.

Business Editors & Energy Writers

RALEIGH, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 9, 2001

ABB Electricity Metering, a leading provider of electricity meters and system solutions throughout the world, announced today the availability of its new ION(R) 8300 revenue-class, socket-mount electricity meter to supply-side markets worldwide.

This new three-phase billing meter offers many of the analysis and multi-port communications features of the advanced ION 8400/8500 meters. The ION 8300 meter provides information and communications capabilities to give energy suppliers a competitive edge by helping industrial, commercial and institutional customers cut energy costs and reduce downtime. The ION 8300 meters are manufactured by Power Measurement Ltd., of Victoria, British Columbia (Canada) and marketed exclusively by ABB Electricity Metering and are available immediately to utilities, energy service providers, meter service providers, ISOs and power marketers.

Ronald B. Via, vice president of marketing for ABB Electricity Metering, commented, "The features of the new ION 8300 meter are an ideal solution for customers that do not require the advanced power quality analysis ION 8400/8500 meters offer. The ION 8300 meter is a cost-effective tool for energy, power, demand, time-of-use measurements and transformer loss compensation with extensive sag/swell features."

In addition to the complete range of revenue-accurate power, energy, demand and time-of-use measurements (exceeding Class 0.2 accuracy), the ION 8300 meter performs detailed sag/swell detection tasks, pinpointing and logging over 500 disturbances with magnitude, duration, energy and start/end timestamps. This meter offers 512K of interval data to complement its 32 channels of historical data recording.

The ION 8300 meter includes sophisticated transformer and line-loss compensation. This powerful feature calculates compensation every second and provides real-time updates to supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) or other monitoring systems -- ideal when assessing grid stability, generation or load curtailment requirements.

The communications capabilities of the ION 8300 meter include three standard communications ports (RS-232/485, RS-485 and optical ports) with the option of providing an optional internal modem. The ION 8300 meter is compatible with billing systems such as UTS MV-90(R) and supports ION Modbus(TM) and DNP 3.0 protocols for seamless integration with SCADA, energy management or automation systems. Support for all of these protocols is standard, special order options or add-on hardware is not needed.

The ION 8300 meters are based on patented ION technology, an object-oriented architecture that allows more flexibility and extensibility than any existing revenue meters. This is important for simultaneously addressing the varied data and control needs of different utility departments and customers. ION architecture allows the meter to provide each party the exact information or control functions required.

The ION 8300 meters are now available from ABB. For more information, contact ABB Electricity Metering 919/212-4800, U.S. Toll Free 800/338-5251 or via e-mail at [e-mail]. Product specifications cited are those in effect at time of publication.

ABB Electricity Metering of Raleigh,(http://www.abb.com/metering), a division of ABB Automation Inc., designs and develops advanced electricity meters and creates information technology solutions and infrastructure for meters and meter data management systems. ABB serves customers in manufacturing, process and consumer industries, utilities, the oil and gas sector and infrastructure markets. ABB's U.S. operations (http://www.abb.com/us), headquartered in Norwalk, Conn., employ over 16,000 people at manufacturing and other facilities in 40 states. Worldwide, ABB employs about 160,000 people in more than 100 countries and reported revenues of $23 billion in 2000.