by Ann Withanee — April 29, 2011—Echelon Corporation has teamed with Infor, a leading provider of business application software serving over 70,000 customers, to deliver turnkey building energy management solutions for commercial and industrial customers based on Echelon’s SmartServer and Infor’s EAM Asset Sustainability Edition product.
This new offering analyzes energy use and trends affiliated with a facility and specific equipment to determine optimal maintenance, replacement, and upgrade strategies. The solution will be sold through both Infor’s and Echelon’s worldwide distribution channels, initially targeting a combined installed base of over 300,000 buildings featuring control networks based on Echelon’s LonWorks technology and more than 70,000 Infor customers in 125 countries.
Combining energy analytics, advanced costing, and sustainability algorithms into a single service allows Infor to fine tune a facility for maximum life span of existing equipment, determine ideal replace or update strategies, and create sustainability strategies that don’t involve massive rip-and-replace expenses. An example of a hidden inefficiency is when air filters in hotel rooms get partially clogged due to skipped or improper cleaning schedules.
The resulting increased resistance to air flow leads to increased power output from fans that are trying to maintain optimal air pressure for guest comfort. This increased output wastes energy. Given a hotel may have 300 rooms per building and many locations, the cost burden can escalate geometrically.
Infor EAM is a solution that is comprised of three basic components: sub-meters to monitor energy use, Echelon’s SmartServers to track and log energy data as well as direct monitoring of LonWorks based building automation equipment and other existing equipment, and Infor’s software solution. Core benefits of the collaboration include:
- Collect data for utilization and energy consumption
- Identify major equipment consuming energy
- Optimize consumption across equipment of the same or different type
- Comparative analyses of equipment lines and operating procedures
- Anomaly identification and proactive correction
- Near real-time visibility to energy consumption to facilitate behavioral change and control modifications
- Facilitate asset repair vs. replacement factoring energy into the equation
Infor is a leading provider of business software and services. More information about Echelon’s SmartServer can be found at the Echelon Web site.
