Friday, August 29, 2008

EnerNOC tackles new market — energy management

By Efrain Viscarolasaga

Boston-based EnerNOC Inc. has built its foundation on helping utilities automatically reallocate power for short periods of time during peak usage through its demand-response program. But in response to customer desires for long-term efficiency programs, the company is rolling out a new product aimed at using the same technology to keep buildings running at maximum efficiency at all times.

Dubbed the PowerTrak Analytics monitoring-based commissioning system, the new program aims to help commercial customers (rather than utilities) automatically monitor and manage their power systems — such as lighting and HVAC — using the same sensor infrastructure as the demand-response program. Where utilities would traditionally use the sensor data to power down unnecessary systems to save power and money during peak usage times, the PowerTrak data is used to give facility managers feedback on their systems at all times and make any necessary changes.

The program is still in its earliest stages, but officials said EnerNOC has been flooded with interest from existing customers, and they soon expect the program to become a significant part of the company’s revenue stream.
“Demand response is still 90 percent of our revenue, but we’ve been spending a lot of time these days focusing on energy efficiency,” said EnerNOC co-founder and CEO Timothy Healy.

EnerNOC has been developing the program for more than a year, but only began rolling it out over the past few months. While executives were unwilling to provide the names of new customers, one early test site, Western Connecticut State University, has reported a savings of $120,000 on natural gas and power costs since implementing the system late last year.

PowerTrak monitors the different systems within a facility and identifies anomalies that may be wasting power, from simple issues like broken thermostats to more complicated problems such as equipment malfunctions. The data is delivered via a web-based software interface, triggering pre-set alarms and allowing facility managers to control certain aspects of the system.

According to Ellen Watts, a principal of Boston-based architectural firm Architerra Inc., that control is becoming a big part of the facility management arsenal.

“We are running into facility managers wanting to install more and more continuous displays of building maintenance data to keep track of energy efficiency, because you can only manage what you measure,” she said.

Because the demand-response program requires participation from utilities, it is only open to customers in the footprint of certain utilities, while the energy efficiency program is open to any company or organization, giving EnerNOC a larger potential customer base.

“With energy efficiency, we don’t have to get regulatory approval or agreements with the utility,” said EnerNOC president and co-founder David Brewster. “It’s more of a software-as-a-service model, where we only have to deal with the customer.”