One of the questions that we frequently face in our discussions with utility companies is how can a utility get the maximum value from data it gets from its meters, from their DSM programs, from the T&D grid, etc? The so-called Big Data Companies [you know who you are] come up with complex answers supported by slick Powerpoint slides and correspondingly eye-popping budgets. Our approach always has been that the answer is much simpler if you first take time to understand what you want to achieve, take steps to collect targeted data and perform the analytics to derive the insights your managers can then put to use right away.

It was a pleasant surprise to come across an article today by the big tax audit and advisory firm KPMG in which their energy experts said that by following a simple 3-step process, any utility can easily get value out of their data. Their recommendation was:

 1. Identify available data: This process focuses on assessing current systems; understanding data capabilities; and identifying new data that's available but either isn't being captured or is captured but not used.

 2. Assess potential value: This step includes comparing potential data against planned usage and searching for additional opportunities outside the planned solution set and current requirements.

3. Develop the transformation: The final step will map the identified opportunities to its enterprise model; identify relevant stakeholders and what the new data elements will mean to them; and design transformational objectives.

Being modest, i am doing my best not to say, 'We told you so.'

Recently came across an industry report that reiterates what we have believed all along - the market for software for tracking and reporting on EE services, just for the industrial market segment alone, is projected to grow at an explosive rate over the coming decade. According to this article,

The U.S. market for these services will rise from $960 million in 2011 to $5.6 billion by 2020, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.6%, according to Pike Research. No longer cheap the way it was decades ago, energy is now considered a critical input to industrial processes and many companies are already using energy management products and services. Energy management software tracks and monitors where energy is used in manufacturing processes and identifies ways to reduce it and control costs. It also facilitates greenhouse gas reporting by benchmarking energy use and tracking improvements.

What is particularly interesting about this report from my viewpoint is that the customers are looking for both energy management and environmental compliance tracking and reporting. We have been in the EE tracking, reporting and analytics market with our E2DR^® platform and last year launched the EnvVTR(TM) module to meet the environmental compliance reporting requirements. In combination, we offer what the marketplace has now realized is what it needs. 

As we always say: Call us and we will get to work helping you meet your goals with the peace of mind only proven products can offer.

As I mentioned in my last blog when we released the EnvCTR™ product module for public availability, we had spent over a year to develop it. We then tested it with one of the largest gaming entertainment companies in Nevada before announcing the product publicly. The response to the product has been very gratifying, enforcing our belief that there is a strong market demand for an integrated and easy-to-use product that is priced reasonably so that companies that don't need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to meet their emissions and air quality compliance reporting responsibilites [e.g., such as for major and minor Title V stationary sources].

The options for companies in gaming, entertainment, hospitals and lodging industries {just to name a few of our target market sectors} are either to use hit-or-miss manual methods [ranging from sticky yellow notes to Excel spreadsheets] or pay upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a securely hosted, integrated platform that can meet all of their environmental tracking and reporting needs. When we demo ouf EnvCTR product to potential customers, the first reaction we get is - "Wow, this is so easy to use and intuitive; we can see our facility folks readily using this without any major training." Then the smiles get really wider when they realize our pricing is very reasonable compared to what they are just spending on manual entering of data and generating reports. The potential to save the fines for non-compliance that they have been hit with the past is just the icing on top!

One of the benefits to us has been the feedback from these folks has helped us identify several improvements to the product, and we have started work on implementing a number of them to make the reports more comprehensive, eliminate any additional work to generate reports that can be directly submitted to the concerned air quality authority, additional user roles to make data capture easier and back-end design improvements to speed up larger reports. We expect to release an updated version soon. In case, you want to know what our EnvCTR can do for you now and the list of improvements we are planning to release shortly, please contact us.

Talking of product improvement, thought our readers might enjoy Dilbert's take on this! {rest assured we are not planning to go down this path!!}

Our regular readers know that we have the leading platform for DSM program data tracking, reporting and analytics in our E2DR® product suite. For the last several months, we have been working on applying those same design principles to meet the compliance tracking and reporting requirements in the environmental area. The result is the just released EnvCTR^TM product.

Now, for some background: companies that operate equipment, such as generators, cooling towers, boilers, etc., which emit specified pollutants, are required to file several reports in order to stay in compliance with the Federal and local permitting requirements for such equipment. For instance, if a company is located in Clark County in Nevada (such as in Las Vegas), then the Title V Permit requirements will apply to what are referred to as stationary emission resources. There are several different items they need to track [such as emissions, fuel consumption, and run-times] and report them in a timely manner to ensure they are in compliance with the Permit issued to them.

An example of required reporting involves tracking equipment run-times over a rolling 12-month period to determine no covered equipment is used beyond what the permit allows that equipment to be used. Running afoul of these limits or failing to track/report in a timely manner, could trigger fines to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.

Over the last year, we worked closely with a major gaming company, whose facilities are subject to these strict emissions requlations, to develop EnvCTR.  Based on the testing feedback, we refined the product and now, are releasing that for use by other clients who need to meet these requirements.

If your company needs such tracking and reporting, contact us and will be happy to arrange a live demo at your convenience.

Businesses talk about providing excellent customer service, but delivering it consistently and particularly, when under duress is not that easy. That's why I want to use this post to highlight the work of our hosting provider, Cartika Hosting. Our key product offerings are offered on the cloud as SaaS: as a result, we are critically dependent on having 24/7/365 availability of our hosted services.

Last night, during a routine update, access to several sites were knocked out. Our monitoring service immediately alerted us to the issue and we contacted Cartika in the early morning hours when most of our customers were still safely enjoying their well-earned rest. Their tech support staff jumped in and had the issue resolved in matter of minutes. No excuses, no sob stories about lack of staff in the middle of the night, etc: not only did this renew our faith in them as a reliable service provider, it also helped secure our reputation for providing uninterrupted access to our products to our clients.

These kinds of services and those who can provide the top-tier services, especially as more products and services migrate to the cloud, will become all the more important in the future. We for one, are glad that we did our homework when we selected our service provider.