With an increase in energy consumption in commercial sector, there has also been a need to improve the energy usage to attain optimum efficiency. According to estimates, a lot of energy go wasted when it comes to commercial use, with companies struggling to meet reliable energy sources.
India is making a headway in the space with a constant adoption of new and improved energy saving technologies, to see a smarter and efficient consumption of energy in commercial sector. There are many data driven smart energy startups that are promising a reliable, safe and affordable energy to everyone.
Analytics India Magazine lists down five such startups that are extensively using technologies such as analytics, artificial intelligence, IoT and big data, to optimize energy saving. Here’s the list in alphabetical order-
1. Atomberg technologies –
Founded in 2012 with a team comprising of IIT Bombay-IIM graduates, Atomberg currently produces Gorilla Fans, India’s most energy efficient ceiling fan that consumes 65% less electricity when compared to any ordinary ceiling fan. Since the launch of their product in November 2015, they have sold more than 1 lakh fans and have client base including Infosys, Tata Power, IDFC, Hyatt Hotels, Indian Railways, Aditya Birla Group etc.
The fans which run on BLDC motors have a unique design with a unique algorithm that drives these motors in such a way that all kind of power losses are eliminated. The algorithm running on a microcontroller is responsible for logging and analysing relevant motor parameters. The data is being logged in real time, and the same is analysed to improve the performance for further energy savings. The smart fans that are controlled by remote has unique features like timer mode, sleep mode along with other energy efficient features. The company is also working on WiFi enabled fans, with motion and temperature sensors.
2. Energy tech Ventures –
EnergyTech Ventures with its micro-services capabilities (sector specific algorithms and tools) helps industries leverage IoT and big data technology to extract more value out of their data assets, enabling them to advance energy efficiency and energy productivity improvement.
Some of the products and solutions by EnergyTech Ventures are—energy efficiency micro services hub, that offers IoT platform to companies to further enhance their offerings by integrating sector specific algorithms available in the hub. EnView, offers a suite of web and mobile based tools that allow SMEs to take advantage of data analytics as and when they want and at a price point they can afford. Enterprise Solutions by the company offer managed solutions from setting up of central data repositories to developing processing engines and integrating with existing or new BI tools for large scale enterprises.
The company has fetched worth $250K of projects, acquired in less than nine months of operations with applications for Utility Meter Data Analytics and Motor Driven Systems. They develop sector specific algorithms for textile, foundry, tea and cement sector etc.
3. Machine Pulse –
Providing rapidly scalable, end-to-end solutions to enable a smarter industrial Internet of Things, Machine Pulse offer modular and domain independent products in the renewable energy sector. They have built applications to provide operational intelligence for the solar photovoltaic and wind energy industries. A part of the $19 B Mahindra Group, with an enthusiastic team of more than 75 data scientists, programmers, hardware and network specialists, Machine Pulse offers various products in energy saving.
SolarPulse™, MachinePulse’s flagship product, is a comprehensive solar PV asset monitoring and management application, developed for both utility scale and rooftop solar PV plants. Currently on its fourth version, it incorporates advanced monitoring capabilities, predictive analytics and asset management via an easy-to-use interface. SolarPulse™ is powered by Erixis™, their artificial intelligence engine based on the Internet of Things platform.
WindPulse™ is another advanced wind farm analytics solution that predicts generation, equipment health and helps efficiently manage the entire wind portfolio with an interactive user interface. It uses specialised machine learning algorithms to improve the overall productivity and revenue of wind farms.
4. Smart Joules –
While business routinely waste energy, there are billions who are typically most affected by the impacts of climate change due to lack of reliable energy sources. Addressing this social, economic and environmental injustice is Smart Joules, that is enabling businesses to do more with less energy.
Their technology platform, DeJoule – leverages a combination of self-developed IoT infrastructure and robust algorithms to usher a paradigm shift from “thumb rule”-based and human centric operational practices to automatic and continuous data-based optimization. With DeJoule, the company identifies, provides, installs and maintains energy efficiency technologies in commercial buildings under their National Award-winning Pay-As-You-Save business model called JoulePAYS. JoulePAYS guarantees an overall energy savings of 10% for hospitals and hotels by working on major energy consuming areas such as air conditioning, pumping, heating and lighting.
With an interdisciplinary team consists of 27 young engineers across the fields of energy, software, robotics, electronics, electrical, mechanical and data engineering, the company has received funding from the likes of Echoing Green, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, TATA Trusts, TATA Cleantech Capital and Yes Bank.
5. Zenatix–
Zenatix, a data-driven energy efficiency company uses advanced machine learning based models delivering up to 30% energy efficiency to large commercial consumers of electricity. The models are built by collecting and analysing millions of previously unseen (“dark”) data points every day from electrical assets. These models allow for automated and intelligent controls along with predictive and preventive maintenance of these assets, resulting in consistent and comfortable consumer experience, while delivering high energy savings.
The company launched their first product, WattMan, in April 2016, which is an IoT based Building Management System (BMS) tailor-made for large retail chains and banking/ financial set ups. Built over a scalable Internet of Things (IoT) stack, WattMan includes robust web-connected hardware developed in-house by Zenatix through extensive research and development. WattMan addresses various energy saving challenges in an automated manner through its cloud based intelligent controls driven by advanced machine learning algorithms. It has been deployed at 700 locations and they help save energy up to 30% for their clients.
