News Release

For Immediate Release
Contact: Peter Vercellone
Office: 401-435-8900
peter.vercellone@litossc.com

Litos Joins GridWise Alliance

(March 24, 2009: Providence, Rhode Island) Litos Strategic Communication, a Rhode Island-based integrated marketing firm, has been accepted as the first marketing company member of the Washington, DC-based GridWise Alliance, a national consortium established to advocate for transition of the nation’s power grid to a “smart” capability that will integrate power infrastructure, devices, processes, information and market structure so that energy can be generated, distributed and consumed more efficiently.

In 2004, the GridWise Alliance entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. Department of Energy to work together to realize the vision of a transformed national electricity grid. The consortium has approximately 60 members, including leading utility companies such as National Grid, manufacturers such as Cisco Systems and consulting entities such as Accenture. The organization employs a range of research, education and government relations activities to advance its goal.

“I am extremely proud to become a member of the GridWise Alliance,” stated agency principal Mark Litos. “As its first marketing and communications member, I look forward to contributing to the massive public and private outreach that transition to the Smart Grid will entail,” he continued.

In 2007, Litos Strategic Communication was hired by the GridWise Alliance to develop a strategic communications plan for the consortium. Subsequently, the firm was hired by the Department of Energy to produce the first lay level description of the Smart Grid, published in book form last year.

About Litos Strategic Communication

Litos Strategic Communication has been involved in virtually every sector of energy for nearly three decades, from demand-response to energy efficiency to the smart grid; from utilities to transmission to technology; from natural gas to renewables. In 2007, the firm wrote the strategic plan to advance the Smart Grid Initiative for the GridWise Alliance. A year later, it authored The Smart Grid: An Introduction, for the U.S. Department of Energy, the first book of its kind to convey to a broad audience, in layman’s terms, the power and promise of the smart grid. Following the success of An Introduction, Litos engaged in stakeholder outreach, publishing six additional guidebooks to address key stakeholder groups which ranged from utilities to regulators to consumer advocates.