Blue Pillar has achieved significant market growth by connecting more behind-the-meter assets, creating compelling ecosystem partnerships, and pioneering Energy Network-as-a-Service
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — September 19, 2017 — Based on its recent analysis of the behind-the-meter networks industry, Frost & Sullivan recognizes Blue Pillar with the “2017 North American Behind-the-meter Internet-of-Energy Growth Excellence Leadership Award” for connecting behind-the-meter assets that can help overcome reliability and resiliency challenges, while also being first in market to offer Energy Network-as-a-Service (ENaaS). Blue Pillar is an Energy Internet of Things (IoT) platform company with the goal to seamlessly connect distributed energy resources (DERs) — new or old and all makes and models — to help commercial facilities, utilities, and energy service providers avoid power outages, balance the grid, alleviate grid stress, and drive higher levels of efficiency and data interoperability.
The aging grid infrastructure in the United States is increasingly strained, with average grid outages increasing an estimated six-fold within the last decade. Additionally, growing distributed energy resources make the grid more vulnerable and difficult for utilities to manage the power and information flow. Given the current grid issues, utilities and their commercial and industrial (C&I) customers are devising strategies to address these problems that require the use of open, behind-the-meter Energy IoT networks to enable solutions such as:
- Virtual power plants (VPPs): a virtual facility that amalgamates various potential resources, including plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), energy storage solutions, and customer-owned DERs;
- Automated demand response (ADR): used by utilities to gain access to distributed generation behind-the-meter in times of peak demand to help stabilize the grid and avoid power outages; and
- Distributed energy resources management systems (DERMS): used to integrate distributed generation sources that are increasingly found behind-the-meter at C&I facilities and used to enhance the controllability of distributed assets through near real-time monitoring.
“Blue Pillar’s Aurora® Energy Network of Things® platform simplifies the connectivity of DERS into an open and centralized platform to deliver real-time energy data to energy providers, C&I facilities, DR aggregators and third-party software providers,” said Farah Saeed, Global Program Leader, Grids. “What makes Aurora unique is that it can connect any switch, meter, generation source, or other asset that happens behind the meter, regardless of age, make, model, or type, through a cyber-secure and scalable open IoT architecture that is completely vendor agnostic. This approach advances data analytics and control at the grid edge required to help utilities and other end users with their capacity planning and peak demand management.”
“We are honored to receive this recognition from Frost & Sullivan. Blue Pillar has achieved tremendous growth in the past five years by focusing on being an open Energy IoT platform that connects behind-the-meter assets to automate the way critical energy data is gathered. Data that was once manually collected from DERs on clipboards or by meter readers can now be accessible through a digital platform to any third-party energy software,” said Tom Willie, CEO of Blue Pillar. “Our growth has been a result of the use of leading-edge IoT architecture and technology partnerships that make our approach 75% faster and 30% more affordable for our customers when compared to the costs of trying to build these behind-the-meter networks on their own.”
Blue Pillar is focused on connecting behind-the-meter assets through an open IoT platform to make DER data (and control) accessible to third-party energy management software. Blue Pillar has differentiated itself not only in innovating the way it prescribes behind-the-meter networks, but in its success in offering an ENaaS — a fully turnkey and automated approach to delivering the creation of Energy IoT networks of DERs without ever requiring the customer to set foot behind the meter. Blue Pillar’s ENaaS offering eliminates operational deployment and maintenance concerns and delivers all hardware, installation, and configuration required to keep the network alive. Behind-the-meter data and control is accessible through an open application program interface (API) that dramatically reduces development time and costs.
“Blue Pillar has successfully demonstrated that it can connect all types of DERs through its industry-recognized Aurora® Energy Network of Things® platform and is scaling globally to connect more DERs than any of its competitors,” said Saeed. “It is able to do so through strong technology partnerships, such as with Dell and Intel for grid-edge gateway devices, Microsoft for OS, and Azure for cloud service. These brand names allow Blue Pillar to successfully bridge the gap between the facility and IT departments. For these reasons, Blue Pillar has earned Frost & Sullivan’s 2017 North American Behind-the-meter Internet-of-Energy Growth Excellence Leadership Award.”
Each year, Frost & Sullivan bestows this award upon the company that demonstrates excellence in growth and customer value. It recognizes the superiority of the product/service, as well as the overall customer, purchase, ownership, and service experience offered, which has resulted in the recipient company seeing above-market growth and greater share of wallet. The award lauds the growth, diversification, and sustainability strategies of the company.
Frost & Sullivan Best Practices awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research to identify best practices in the industry.
About Blue Pillar
Blue Pillar connects the Energy Things that power our world. The only IoT solution to unite all Energy Things onto a single platform, Blue Pillar unleashes the power of real-time data to strengthen critical infrastructure and accelerate business. Blue Pillar’s Aurora is automated through a template-driven process where security is built-in from sensor to cloud. With Blue Pillar, companies have unprecedented insight into their energy needs to become more efficient and have peace of mind that when the grid goes down, their business will continue forward. Learn more at bluepillar.com or on Twitter at @bluepillarinc.
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