As we prepare to turn the page on 2023, we’re taking a moment to pause and reflect on a year that was full of milestones, opportunities and industry innovation. This year, we continued our commitment to resourcefulness, making significant progress in innovating our solutions, ensuring customer success and expanding our impact in communities across the globe. From implementing cutting-edge smart city technologies and supporting our customers with distributed energy resource integration to enabling real-time visibility at the grid edge, 2023 was a year of enabling the possibilities for a more sustainable future. Keep reading as we revisit a few of the highlights.  

Transforming Our World Begins Inside Itron Walls 

In June, we released our 2022 Environmental Social Governance (ESG) Report, which highlights Itron’s commitment to our ESG strategy in action. The report expands on our 2020 approach and outlines the tangible ways we advanced our goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and driving a more sustainable future both inside and outside Itron walls. Centered around four key pillars, Itron’s ESG framework permeates all areas of our business. As we continue to battle climate disruption, Itron is committed to protecting energy and water by doing the right thing for our business, customers and planet. This is how we are actively creating a more resourceful world.  

Empowering Customer Achievements 
2023 was the year of finding new and innovative ways to address our customers' most pressing challenges. We announced an extended collaboration with long-time customer, Qatar Cool, to enhance its thermal operations using Itron’s data collection and meter data management solution. 

Multiple Itron customers, including Peoples Gas, North Shore Gas and ComEd, came together to share ComEd’s existing Itron advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) multi-purpose network to streamline natural gas meter reading, create efficiencies and lower carbon emissions. The collaboration is anticipated to reduce an average of 626 tons of carbon emissions per year.

Abbanoa S.p.A., the main water distributor in Sardinia, Italy, deployed Itron’s Intelis wSource smart water meters. Itron’s smart water meters will enable the water provider to utilize data for more sustainable water use and distribution on the Mediterranean Sea's second-largest island.

Itron expanded our collaboration with Alectra Utilities to modernize and improve the utility’s electric distribution grid performance and enable value-added service for its 1 million customers. The project includes deployment of Itron’s Gen5 Riva meters, multi-purpose industrial IoT (IIoT) network solution and utility management software suite, Utility IQ. 

Pushing the Boundaries of Utility Innovation
This past year was full of exciting achievements for customers and Itron alike. To kick it off, we unveiled our new DI network interface card (NIC) that enables significant improvement in time to action, situational awareness, analysis and advanced event detection. The launch of this cutting-edge technology marked a significant milestone in Itron’s journey of enabling intelligence and control at the grid edge for our customers. 

In May, we became the first vendor in North America to ship one million Intelis ultrasonic smart gas meters. Intelis is changing the value proposition for gas customers from metering and automation to enabling intelligence at the edge of the network, and we are thrilled to reach this notable milestone that is a testament to the important work we’ve done and continue to do. In the new year, we look forward to reaching new milestones as we transform the distribution network, increase community safety and promote the well-being of people around the world. 

Accelerating the digital transformation for water utilities across the globe was top of mind for Itron in 2023, which is why we launched AMI Essentials in Australia and New Zealand. AMI Essentials for water is a flexible and open standards-based, end-to-end solution that provides a fully integrated software suite for data collection, meter data management and device management. Itron has a long history of supporting utilities in Australia and New Zealand, and this solution enables us to continue helping them mitigate the impacts of climate disruption, address asset management and leakage challenges, and more. 

Accelerating Energy and Water Innovation at Itron Inspire(s)
The energy, excitement and innovation were incredible at this year's flagship event, Itron Inspire, in San Antonio, Texas. More than 1,000 leaders in energy, water and city services explored the possibilities to solve the most pressing challenges in our industry. Read my recap blog to get more of the highlights from our annual, customer-focused event.

In 2023, Itron hosted the first ever Itron Inspire Africa in Kigali, Rwanda, and it was a major success. The customer event focused on driving innovation, reimagining customer engagement and exploring the latest solutions that are helping our customers better manage their energy and water resources. Learn more about this event in the team’s recap blog.

Honoring the Achievements of Itron Customers
In August, long-time Itron customer and partner, Tampa Electric Company, was recognized as POWER Magazine’s 2023 Smart Grid Award Winner. The utility was recognized for the deployment of advanced technology, its pioneering culture and the measurable outcomes of its innovative tools and programs. Itron is proud to work with a forward-thinking utility like Tampa Electric that is actively investing in reliable service delivery and better-connected communities.

We are proud to celebrate our customers who are propelling the energy industry forward and have the results to prove it. At this year’s Itron and Inspire, Frost & Sullivan announced Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) and Las Vegas Valley Water District (LVVWD) as the recipients of the Excellence in Resourcefulness Awards for their ability to produce measurable outcomes in water conservation. We also celebrated Tampa Electric Company, who was awarded the 2023 Itron Innovator Award for its deployment of energy-efficient LED technology. These are just a few examples of the extraordinary work our customers are doing to address the needs of their communities while preserving the world’s most precious resources. 

Making Our Way Across the Globe
In 2023, in-person events nearly made a full comeback. We engaged with key audiences at a diverse array of events and showcased our cutting-edge solutions and technologies. Our participation ranged from industry-specific conferences to international trade shows, each selected to align with our strategic goals and reach the audiences most in need of our solutions. At each event, we fostered meaningful connections with new and familiar stakeholders to develop a deeper understanding of their unique challenges and opportunities. Check out a few of the most notable events we attended this year:

DISTRIBUTECH International
Itron had the opportunity to be a diamond sponsor at DISTRIBUTECH 2023 - the annual event for transmission and distribution that explores the latest innovations in electricity delivery automation, energy efficiency, distributed energy resources, smart cities and much more. 

IEEE Grid Edge Technologies Conference & Exposition
In April, Itron president and CEO, Tom Deitrich, participated in a panel titled, “Innovators at the Edge of the Transition” at an event that addresses the latest trends and challenges in grid management.

OzWater 
Itron was thrilled to be a Stream Sponsor and an exhibitor at Australia’s premier water exposition and conference, Ozwater 2023.

VietWater
Members of the Itron team had the opportunity to travel to HCMC, Vietnam to attend Vietnam’s international water supply, sanitation, water resources and purification event along 10,000+ attendees.

Carrefour de L’Eue 
We also attended Carrefour de L’Eue, which is the largest event for water providers and utilities in France.

Smart City Expo World Congress (SCEWC)
Itron joined industry leaders and representatives from over 800 cities and 140+ countries last month at the SCEWC - the world’s biggest and most influential event on urban innovation. 

In addition to the highlights above and many others, 2023 also included Itron’s 30th anniversary on NASDAQ as a publicly traded company. The average lifespan of a publicly traded company is around 18 years, which we’ve clearly exceeded. We would like to extend a huge thank you to our customers, partners, colleagues and everyone in-between for your contributions to a fantastic 2023. Here’s to another year of tackling challenges, identifying solutions and finding opportunities to create a more resourceful world.