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Celerity Selected by Hopkinsville Electric for
Interactive Energy Management System
KNOXVILLE, Tenn., Jan. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Celerity Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: CLRT - news) has been chosen by
Hopkinsville Electric System (HES) to provide T 6000™ digital set top boxes as part of their energy management system.
EnergyNet™, a service of the Hopkinsville Electric System was created to provide better ways to manage electricity, track
power usage, and forecast monthly power bills.
With a customer base of 13,000 homes and businesses, HES is planning to implement the energy management system in March
1999. Subscribers in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, 75 miles north of Nashville, will be equipped with Celerity's T 6000 digital set
top boxes connected over a fiber optic network to the central office. The T 6000 digital set top box, with energy management
software, will provide control and monitoring of power usage and remote access meter reading. Homeowners will be able to
monitor power usage, get estimated bills and schedule appliance usage and heating and cooling for maximum efficiency and
savings.
Electric deregulation means that companies like HES need to offer their customers more value-added services now, and the
introduction of home automation and monitoring of devices in the home will provide HES customers with the ability to easily
manage their energy use on a TV or PC with attractive on-screen menus and a simple remote control. This same device will
allow HES customers to access the Internet rapidly and easily, also over their TV or PC, and if HES elects to, the systems can
be used for interactive services such as education, retailing and video on demand.
''This is the first deployment of TV-centric home automation and monitoring on a broadband network for an energy company
in the United States,'' said Ken Van Meter, President and CEO of Celerity Systems. ''We expect that this project will be the
first of many as energy companies move to offer a more diverse array of products and services to their customers. Energy
management and high-speed, high quality Internet are a great start, and they are just the beginning.''
''Emerging interactive services including home energy management and automation, Internet access, interactive education,
distance learning, electronic retailing, and video on demand, are exactly what our customers are looking for,'' said Austin
Carroll, General Manager for Hopkinsville Electric Service. ''Our goal is to provide the latest technology to our customers,
allowing even those homes without a computer to have access to the Internet. We believe that interactive services will comprise
an important new revenue stream for energy companies in the United States and elsewhere, as we face reduced margins from
energy prices. These new services will allow us to leverage our outstanding relationship with customers and will make us an
even more important part of their lives.
We are particularly pleased with the capabilities of the Celerity Systems T 6000 digital set top box. We found that it is the only
set top box available that allows us to offer home automation and monitoring on a TV or PC for our customers,'' Carroll
continued. ''Now that peak power demand is almost equal to power generation capacity, it is important both from an
environmental and a cost standpoint that we find ways to manage energy wisely. By using these new technologies, we can use
less energy, resulting in lower energy bills for our customers, and avoid or defer additional expensive plant construction.''
Celerity Systems, Inc., headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee designs and manufactures interactive digital video servers and
digital set top boxes, and markets complete end-to-end systems through its strategic relationships with major companies
including Nortel, Minerva, FORE Systems, and Cisco.
This press release contains forward-looking statements. Such statements involve various risks that may cause actual results to
differ materially from those expressed in such forward looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not
limited to: market demand for the Company's products, successful implementation of the Company's products, competitive
factors, the ability to manage the Company's growth and the ability to recruit additional personnel and other risks detailed from
time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to, those described
under the caption ''Description of Business -- Risk Factors'' in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year
ended December 31, 1997.
SOURCE: Celerity Systems, Inc.
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