Itron Inc. is projecting revenue growth as electrification, weather volatility, manufacturing growth, and government stimulus coalesce to boost demand at the Liberty Lake-based utility-tech company.

Itron, which makes automated utility-meter readers and related technology, had a strong financial performance in 2023.

The publicly traded company (Nasdaq: ITRI) reached about $97 million in net income attributable to Itron, up by about $107 million from a net loss in 2022. 

Itron generated $2.2 billion in revenue in 2023—an increase of 21% compared with 2022. The company grew its gross profit in 2023 by 37% compared with the year prior, reaching $714 million. 

The company plans to report its 2024 first-quarter earnings on May 2.

“2023 was a very strong year for the company,” Itron CEO Tom Deitrich says in a recent interview with the Journal. “We grew nicely on the strong bookings that we had generated back in ‘21 and ‘22. We were winning a lot of new business during that time period.”

Financial growth is also expected in 2024, he says. 

“We are looking to be growing revenue by about 7% year over year from ‘23 to ‘24,” says Deitrich. “That’s what our guidance was set on."

Itron's analyst rating consensus is currently a "Strong Buy," with an average stock price target of $106.33, based on the recommendations of 13 analysts, according to Nasdaq's website.

The company's stock price closed at $94.85 a share on April 23, much closer to its 52-week high of $96.73 a share than its 52-week low of $50.60.

Much of the financial growth hinges on what Itron refers to as its Grid Edge Intelligence portfolio, which refers to a collection of all the capabilities Itron has been working on, Deitrich says. Itron’s customers, which are utilities, can use the portfolio to understand better what’s happening in their service territories to reduce leaks, increase safety, and improve reliability. 

The grid edge is where utility service ends and customer equipment starts, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity. The grid edge begins at customers’ meter points and includes their own equipment, software, and controls.

Utility network technologies continue to advance as grid demands grow and become more complex. 

“The transformation that's going on inside of the utility networks all around the globe is almost akin to that transformation of flip phones to smart phones,” Deitrich says.

The newest addition to the Grid Edge Intelligence portfolio was Itron’s $35 million acquisition of Newport Beach, California-based Elpis Squared, a provider of software and services for utility grid operations. The acquisition enables Itron to embed real-time, high resolution grid edge data into the grid planning, operations, and engineering process.

“What Elpis Squared has done for a while is understand from a utilities perspective what is happening inside of their territory every day,” Deitrich says.

Elpis Squared has over 10 years of operational experience with some of North America’s largest investor-owned utilities, according to an Itron press release. 

“Combining all of the network of endpoints and capabilities we have with (Elpis Squared’s) grid planning and forecasting capabilities creates a better offering,” Deitrich says.

Demand for Itron’s Grid Edge Intelligence solutions remains high as grid complexity increases, he says. 

“You have cybersecurity and physical security issues that are out there where bad actors are trying to disrupt utility services,” Deitrich says. “You have dramatic growth in electricity that is expected over the next several decades.” 

Utilities are facing higher demand as more people are investing in rooftop solar systems and electric vehicles, transportation is becoming increasingly electric, artificial intelligence and cloud computing are leading to more data center growth, more manufacturing is coming back to the U.S., the population is increasing, and weather is becoming more volatile, Deitrich says. 

“If you look at the amount of electricity needs from roughly the year 2000 through 2020, it was really kind of flat,” he says. “If you look at 2020 to 2040, it’s going to grow pretty dramatically because of those changes.” 

Deitrich emphasizes Itron’s focus on distributed intelligence solutions, which allow utilities to download applications that help spot safety issues, show where outages have happened, and help utilities understand what’s happening across their territories. 

Too often, he says, utilities find themselves not knowing that’s going on in their territories. 

“Creating that visibility and the ability to control assets out at the edge is what we do for our customers,” says Deitrich. 

Without grid edge visibility, certain portions of the grid could end up being overloaded. If, for example, too many people tried to charge their EVs at the same time on the same cul-de-sac, they could potentially create an outage by overloading the transformer supplying the neighborhood, he says. 

With grid edge visibility, in that example, utilities could proactively upsize a transformer to prevent an outage, Deitrich explains. 

Another example of creating more visibility for utilities involves vegetation management. If tree branches are rubbing up against wires and creating electrical disturbances, Itron’s technology enables utilities to see that happening through electrical signals, so they can be proactive and trim those branches, ensuring they don’t take out the electrical lines the next time there’s a storm, says Deitrich. 

“That’s how we see people using Grid Edge Intelligence today—for things like safety, things like resiliency and reliability, vegetation management, understanding what is happening with rooftop solar or EVs out in their territory, to make sure that their infrastructure remains stable,” he says. 

Another reason for optimism about Itron’s growth is due to the amount of federal government stimulus that’s still coming, through packages like the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and, to a certain extent, the Inflation Reduction Act, Deitrich says.  

He says that investment in infrastructure, when applied to water or electricity systems, helps Itron’s customers move faster, which creates a tailwind for the things that they buy, leading to a good growth future for the company. 

“The future is very bright in our world, given the amount of government stimulus still coming.”

Itron recently underwent a brand identity change that features a new logo and reflects the direction the company currently is heading. 

“The timing of this really has a lot to do with our changing portfolio,” Deitrich says. “The new brand image is intended to reflect that—a bit more modern, more digital future of the company.”  

Itron has 445 employees at its Liberty Lake headquarters, located at 2111 N. Molter Road. The company has over 5,000 employees worldwide. 

“I couldn’t be more excited about where the company is heading and the market that is in front of us,” says Deitrich.