Why Energy Domains And Scalability Define Software Market Leadership
The energy management software market is evolving rapidly as new customer requirements trigger the launch of a new generation of enterprise-scale applications. According to our recent Green Quadrant report on the energy software market customers are buying software to find cost savings (87%), track financial data on energy spend (53%), consolidate consumption data (47%) and achieve energy targets (27%). Key requirements for energy software provided by firms like Infor, JouleX and Verisae are energy monitoring and targeting, reporting and certification, utility bill management and carbon reporting. With more than 60 applications available that meet these core functionality needs what should customers focus on?
Firstly, software suppliers need to have deep, granular, proven knowledge of what we call "energy domains". An energy domain, for instance a data centre or a commercial office, is a facility which has the same types of energy consuming assets and management technologies across multiple firms. Due to the complexity of integrating into dozens of different meters, controls and data aggregation devices energy software suppliers need to specialize on specific domains. For example, CA Technologies and JouleX have specialized in the data centre. Cisco EnergyWise is designed to capture data from IP network attached assets. Our Green Quadrant, based on live product demos and insights from a customer panel, elevated knowledge of energy domains to the top of the purchase list. The four suppliers in the Leaders’ Quadrant (CA Technologies, CarbonSystems, IBM and Verisae) all demonstrated deep, proven capabilities in at least one energy domain.
Secondly, software providers need to demonstrate the scalability of their data management capabilities if they are targeting firms or cities with an energy management roadmap that will spew out massive volumes of interval data. Power utilities, oil and gas firms and chemicals firms generate these large data flows and will only select software that has the scalability to meet their needs. Few providers have built true enterprise-scale energy management software that can automate the collection and processing of large data sets. With the push towards private smart grids and on-site power generation, many more sectors, such as retail and telecoms, will need scalability not just site-level applications.
- Tagged in :
- Energy Management,
- Energy Management Software
