What is Hara’s Environmental and Energy Management Software?

Image from Flickr, by Jeremy Higgs

On Monday, the 18-month old company, Hara debuted their Environmental and Energy Management (EEM) software online. The EEM software identifies how efficient and eco-friendly a business, organization or government’s operations are with energy, water and waste.

Based in Menlo Park, California, Hara was founded by Amit Chatterjee and Ajit Nazre with $6 million in venture financing from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Coca-Cola Company and Palo Alto (a Northern California city ) have used Hara’s EEM software. According to Hara, Palo Alto saved $2 million by using the EEM software.

According to the website, Crunchbase, EEM is made up of the following modules:

• Discover – Aggregate environmental record information from relevant data sources in order to provide a comprehensive view of resource consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and environmental impact.
  
• Plan – Define strategies, optimize planning decisions, forecast reductions, identify objectives and metrics, and calculate timing and benefits for each initiative.
  
• Act – Manage the execution of environmental and energy programs, track results per initiative, and create an audit trail for any current or future regulatory requirements.
  
• Innovate – Implement the Hara methodology and leverage best practices for continuous improvements and business transformation. 

Hara means “fresh green” in Sanskrit. Chatterjee said Hara’s vision is to “enable a post-carbon economy in which organizations can grow and profit without depleting the earth’s resources.” insight, good analysis, and good data,” said Jacob. 

“We have the opportunity to write the encyclopedia of environmental efficiency, creating an unprecedented body of knowledge that will influence environmental impact reduction initiatives for years to come,” said Chatterjee. “We indicate how healthy a business is at consuming natural resources.”

“I'm not easily impressed," said Bryan Jacob, director of energy management and climate protection for Coca-Cola. However, after a presentation by Hara, he said to his boss, “I think we need to put this package into a test.”

Hara’s EEM software provides “effective environmental management requires good insight, good analysis, and good data,” said Jacob. “Hara goes beyond what so many other tools do. It helps calculate the inventory, establish the strategic targets, and has initiative-tracking features.”

“We're not finding a lot of resistance to the pricing,” said Nazre. “What is resonating with the customers the most is: how quickly will it pay for itself?” 

The Importance of Energy Efficiency

Energy use accounted for 82 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2006, according to the Department of Energy (DOE). Energy efficiency is the best and quickest way to reduce GHG emissions. A report released last week by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy detailed how deploying semiconductors technologies generated “sizeable energy productivity benefits.”

The U.S. economy has grown by over 60 percent in 20 years, but energy demand only increased by 20 percent. The energy needed to produce $1 of the U.S. GDP continually decreased because of technological innovations. The ACEEE report predicts future innovations will continue the trend.

The report calculated that the “cumulative electricity bill savings enabled by semiconductors” may be greater than $1.3 trillion through 2030, and reduce carbon emissions by 700 million metric tons. In 2006, the “entire family of semiconductor-enabled technologies” created net savings of about 775 billion kilowatt hours (KWh). If 1976 technologies were used now another 184 power plants would need to be built.

Overcoming barriers to energy efficiency

There are barriers to overcome in regards to increasing energy efficiency. One of the main barriers is the lack of knowledge about efficiency opportunities, according to Midwest Energy. Midwest conducts free energy audits for their customers in order to demonstrate the importance of energy efficiency.

Another barrier is large upfront capital expenditures. Midwest pays the upfront cost of their customers’ efficiency upgrades, and customers repay the utility company via a monthly charge on their energy bill. However, the repayments are less than monthly energy savings, so the customers will still see a reduction in their bill.

The stimulus funds for power companies

The American Recovery and Reinvestment (ARRA) provides billions of dollars in federal funding and tax incentives for power companies to increase energy efficiency. Power companies can improve their infrastructure and facilities, or deliver efficiency programs and energy savings to customers with ARRA funds.

In 2008, the State Energy Program (SEP) received $44 million. ARRA waived a 20 percent cost share for states, and waived the provision that had limited capital investments to 50 percent of SEP funds. The funds from SEP are given to state energy offices. Energy efficient projects are funded through SEP.

The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 authorized the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG), whose main purpose is to improve energy efficiency. Previously unfunded, ARRA provided $3.2 billion for EECBG.

The Weatherization Assistance Program has been around since the 1970s. ARRA provided $5 billion for the program in order to meet President Obama’s campaign promise to weatherize a million homes a year.

Technorati Profile

Make the Building Sector More Energy Efficient

Buildings account for 40 percent of global energy use, according to a recent report for the Energy Efficiency in Buildings (EEB) project by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. The EEB project, which began in 2006, focuses on six world regions: Brazil, China, Europe, India, Japan, and the U.S. The six world regions represent nearly two-thirds of the world's energy use. The estimated growth in all six EEB is 76 percent. 

The International Energy Agency calls for buildings globally to contribute 17 percent of emissions reductions below business-as-usual (BAU) by 2050. The U.S. will need to be at least 80 percent below BAU by 2050 to meet the goal. The report suggests six ways the building sector can take action to reduce its energy use:

• Strengthen codes and labeling for increased transparency
  
• Incentivize energy-efficient investments
  
• Encourage integrated design approaches and innovations
  
• Develop and use advanced technology to enable energy-saving
  
• behaviors
  
• Develop workforce capacity for energy saving
  

Cutting energy in the retail sector will help the U.S. meet the IEA's goal. The report lists recommendations, including the following:

• Audit the energy performance of retail buildings
  
• Enforce building codes
  
• Introduce subsidies for achieving high performance in buildings
  
• Regulate to phase out low performing buildings
  
• Get retailers to participate in energy awareness campaigns
  
• Use R&D to lower first cost and increase energy savings
  
• Introduce process incentives for developers so they will adopt integrated design approaches which achieve high energy efficiency
  
• Promote onsite renewable generation for all new retail developments
  

The sheer number of shopping malls in the U.S. means energy use needs to be cut in that sector. The report recommends the following:

• Smart metering will make stores in the mall aware of their energy use and motivate them to take action
  
• Install solar photovoltaic (PV) panels to replace some electricity from the grid
  
• Make changes to lighting inside and outside the mall
  
• Improve the cooling and ventilation systems
  
• Shade external glass

Energy Efficiency Investments Declined Last Year

Last week the results of the third annual Energy Efficiency Indicator survey were released. The survey is conducted by Johnson Controls Inc. and International Facility Management Association.

For the second year in a row, the survey showed businesses are spending less on energy efficiency. However, 71 percent of survey respondents said they are paying more attention to energy efficiency than they were a year ago. Last year, 72 percent said they paid more attention to energy efficiency.

Although 58 percent said energy management is very or extremely important, only 46 percent expect to make energy efficiency improvements financed with capital expenditures, down from 56 percent in 2008. Sixty percent expect to spend less than ten percent of their facilities related budgets on energy efficiency.

Respondents cited limited capital availability (42 percent) and unattractive paybacks (21 percent) as the two biggest obstacles to enacting energy efficiency projects. Almost 50 percent require payback periods that are less than three years.

Sixty percent think that natural gas and electricity prices will increase over the next year, down from 80 percent in 2008. Thirty-one percent do not expect prices to increase.

The majority of respondents (85 percent) think that legislation mandating energy efficiency and carbon reduction is likely within the next two years. Forty-four percent said government incentives are extremely influential in making energy efficiency decisions.

"I think we'll see substantial change next year," said C. David Myers, president of Building Efficiency for Johnson Controls. "And I think that change will be action where activity was laggard this year. I also think there will be a better economic environment next year compared with what you see today."