Schneider Electric Boosts Partner Programs for EcoStruxure update from June 2013

Schneider Electric has several announcements out of its Xperience Efficiency event this week. It announced the EcoStructuxure Alliances Program, launched a new building analytics offering, was recognized by the U.S. Dept. of Energy, and announced a joint venture agreement with National Technical Information Service (NTIS).

The company announced the EcoStruxure Alliances Program, a program enabling partner integrations into the EcoStruxure architecture to bring intelligent energy management to mutual customers, drive multi-vendor standardization for better system performance, and accelerate time to deployment making energy management faster and more accurate.

"The energy dilemma facing our world is massive, and our best hope for solving it for future generations is through partnerships with other like-minded, innovative companies," said Aaron Davis, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, Schneider Electric. "Through our partnerships and the resulting integrations into the EcoStruxure architecture, we can bring intelligent energy management to our mutual customers, drive multi-vendor standardization for better system performance, and accelerate time to deployment making energy management faster and more
accurate."

New Building Analytics Offering

Schneider Electric announced the launch of its Building Analytics, which helps building owners and facility managers to continuously monitor and analyzes real-time data. The tool gathers historical trending from building sensors, control systems and utility meters, all pulled from the Building Management System (BMS). It helps identify building operation deficiencies and generate reports, providing cost and energy saving opportunities prioritized by impact on energy use, cost savings and tenant comfort. It also documents performance measurement and verification for aware programs such as LEED and utility incentives.

"Advanced services are crucial in assisting organizations with maximizing the efficiency of their buildings, especially as they continue to face challenges with finding quality personnel equipped with the knowledge to analyze complex building data," said Zachary Rotello, director of facility services and solutions, Alpha Controls & Services. "Schneider Electric’s Building Analytics empowers our customers with its ease of use, ability to quickly drill down to the root causes of energy inefficiencies and assist them in solving problems in an efficient manner."

Building Analytics is part of a suite of advanced life-cycle services, combining expert guidance and servers, powerful extended data analytics, and cloud storage for optimal building performance.

Joint Venture with NTIS Announced

NTIS is the largest central resource for government-funded information to offer energy monitoring and related services, energy consulting, energy audits, and turnkey energy projects to the U.S. Government agencies. The agreement provides easy access for federal agencies seeking commercial energy management solutions via a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) or Interagency Agreement (IAA) with NTIS.

"For federal agencies seeking energy management systems, the traditional process, which can take upwards of a year, can present difficulties in terms of meeting requirements to collect, monitor and baseline energy consumption information," said Jim Plourde, national business deployment manager for Schneider Electric. "Under this agreement, Schneider Electric and NTIS are creating streamlined and efficient processes that will drastically shorten this cycle to ultimately help federal agencies meet energy policy requirements while increasing sustainability. These customized and secure energy management programs under the joint venture are truly a win-win for federal agencies."

U.S. DOE Recognizes Schneider for Better Buildings Challenge

Schneider Electric was recognized by the U.S. Department of Energy for its outstanding performance in the Better Buildings Challenge, a program launched by President Obama in 2011 to reduce energy use in buildings across the U.S.  Schneider Electric’s energy intensity was reduced by 15.6 percent over three years, easily beating the DOE goal of 7.5 percent.

Schneider Electric conducted energy assessments at all its locations and then used its own products and services to install building automation, renewable energy, energy-efficient lighting, automated lighting control, energy metering and remote monitoring, and variable speed drives. Plans to meet future energy reduction goals include expanded integration of the company’s products and services, continuous re-commissioning, and more renewable energy.

“As a key part of the value proposition we offer to customers, reducing energy use within our own facilities is extremely important to Schneider Electric from both a business and sustainability standpoint,” said Chris Curtis, president and CEO, North America, Schneider Electric. “The results of the Better Plants Challenge to date point to what is possible today for businesses of all types in curbing their energy use - contributing to their own bottom line as well as positively influencing the energy future in the U.S.”

StruxureWare for Water

Schneider Electric launched StruxureWare for Water offer, a unique application of StruxureWare software that gives full visibility into energy use and operations across the water cycle. This allows water managers to gather various data points about how energy is being used to move and manage water across a broad geographic area, and then turns that data into actionable insights to help managers use energy and water more effectively.

The company has partnered with Alarm.com, the leader in interactive security and connected home services, to bring Schneider Electric’s Wiser home management system to a broader audience of home builders, contractors, utilities and other service providers in the energy efficiency space.

It also announced that Energy University surpassed 350,000 users of Schneider Electric’s signature industry education initiative, which has provided energy efficiency courses to professionals in 165 countries and 12 languages since 2006.  More than 500,000 courses have been taken since the inception of Energy University and the program features more than 20 global industry association endorsements.