Keynotes from Ken Oshman, Echelon's CEO, and David Brewster, EnerNOC's President challenged the attendees with some interesting ideas. What is an energy management system? Is it an appreciating or depreciating asset? How do you calculate the ROI? Which is the market approach that solves the problem of scarce energy the fastest and most effectively, supply side or demand side?
From Ken's perspective, the answer is that an open control system, put in place to run a facility, city, or system on a day-to-day basis when used for simply that is a depreciating asset, losing it's value over time. But there's a better way. Put in an open system and then build a energy applications on top of it to transform a depreciating asset into an appreciating asset.
For example, Eddie Bauer's control system in their warehousing facilities, without energy savings would have had a multi-year payback. Easily justifiable. Eddie Bauer's system was used to optimize energy use, this put energy savings into their ROI calculation resulting in a sub-12 month ROI.
Ken focused on the opportunity that is in front of companies that want to put in energy management systems when coupled with the power of distributed, open control networks - showing the attendees that demand response, energy management, controls and operational efficiency are individually valuable, and together an unbeatable combination.
David Brewster followed with something new for the controls industry. Focus on the supply side of the energy equation. Guarantee energy suppliers capacity during peak by managing demand. Contract the utility side and put the energy management gateways in commercial/industrial sites for free. David gave us a new way of looking at the demand response business from the supply side that promises to leverage and drive the demand side. And the interesting thing is that it's all built on open standards on both the IT and controls side.
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