Where is the low hanging fruit? Try Lumismart and BuildingIQ

Every energy efficiency innovation company believes it has low hanging fruit waiting to be picked and handed over on a silver ROI plate for the company’s CFO to feast on. Investing in energy efficiency can be a smart business decision but the gap between “Pay-Back” and “Pay-Out” keeps most businesses on the sidelines.

What is a payback too good to pass up? 12 months? 24 months? 36 months? Investing in greening our operations is not about doing a financial good, it is about doing financially better. Otherwise it won’t pass the CFO’s investment hurdle rate. So again we are back to the proverbial question: Where is the low hanging fruit?

Recently I found two companies with fruit so ripe you hardly have to reach up at all. Both make for a nice fruit plate that will satisfy any skeptical CFO’s appetite.

The first product is Cavet’s LumiSmart, an adaptive lighting control system that works with most fluorescent lighting systems reducing fluorescent lighting power consumption by 30%.  Installed at the circuit panel by an electrician, Luminsmart requires no localized ballast or fixture retrofits.  Remarkably, through its use of  biomechanic processing, our eyes only see a .03% reduction in light output. The Luminsmart is ideally suited for Offices, Factories, Warehouses, Big Box Retail Stores, Malls, Parking Garages or any property that spends at least 15% of their total electricity bill on lighting. Depending on the hours of operation (12 hours or 24 hours), the voltage and the number of lamps managed, the ROI can range between 12 months and 30 months. An impressive piece of financial fruit low enough for a CFO to think very seriously about reaching for it.

The second fruit choice is BuildingIQ’s new and highly innovative BuildingIQ Saas Software that supplements existing building energy management systems to turn today’s smart buildings into smarter buildings. After gaining product validation and serious traction in Australia’s commercial building market they recently brought their top team and service offering to the U.S. confident the market is ripe (pun intended) for a breakthrough in building energy savings.

What sets BuildingIQ apart is that it is the only energy management system that predicts energy demand by factoring in weather forecasts, peak demand factors and demand response signals–directly adjusting heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system parameters to continuously optimize energy use. The secret sauce of BuildingIQ is its patented Predictive Energy Optimization™ technology that automatically learns a building’s energy performance and adapts to changes in internal or external conditions while always optimizing tenant comfort.  Building owners achieve 10-30% reduction in total energy spending by continuously maintaining high HVAC efficiency – increasing operating property income – and valuation. The company also provides an ad-on module that optimizes a building’s response to any Demand Response agreement the building owner may have further increasing marginal revenue.

Is there an opportunity to improve building “energy use intelligence” in the US commercial building market. The United States Energy Information Administration provided this evidence:

• America spends more than $500 billion per year on energy.
• 39%–$195 billion–goes to powering buildings. In its “Smarter Planet” initiative, IBM pegs building energy consumption more in the neighborhood of 70%, which would put spending more in the range of $300 billion (but why quibble.)
• In a study conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it was determined that 30%-or between $27-90 billion–of the energy use in a commercial building is unnecessary or inefficient.

Energy audits of commercial office buildings and corporate campuses conducted by the Department of Energy found that actual energy consumption was fully 40% higher than they expected and that the demand for electric power for corporate facilities and campuses continues to increase at a rapid pace throughout the U.S.

What does this have to do with low hanging fruit?

It is validating that ripe fruit is everywhere for the picking as long as we pick it before it falls to the ground as waste. Buildings with Higher Efficiency Energy IQ’s are going to be more predictable revenue generators – and lessen the financial uncertainty and risks associated with continued rising energy costs – which is all good news for a forward thinking and risk averse CFO.