Thursday, March 31, 2011

Industry Leading Companies Join Fast-Growing EnOcean Alliance

The EnOcean Alliance, a consortium of companies working to standardize and internationalize energy harvesting wireless technology for green intelligent buildings is one of the fastest growing member organizations of its kind. EnOcean Alliance is proud to be adding such market leaders as General Electric, Titus, Viessman and Overkiz, a Somfy company, to its rapidly growing list of members. With the addition of BSC Computer GmbH as the newest promoter member, the EnOcean Alliance now totals 172 companies. In 2010, over 50 new member companies joined the consortium, resulting in 50 percent growth over 2009.

Confirming this technology’s rapid adoption rate, there are now thousands of EnOcean-enabled buildings in North America and more than 100,000 worldwide. Quickly becoming the industry standard for both new and retrofit green intelligent buildings, EnOcean’s miniaturized energy harvesting modules feature ultra low power radio technology that is highly attractive to OEMs developing wireless sensors and switches used to improve the energy efficiency of commercial facilities significantly.

“Battery-free wireless sensors leveraging radio frequency technology are on the verge of becoming ubiquitous because of their remarkable flexibility,” said Kirsten West, principal analyst at West Technology Research. “We’re seeing significant deployments across building, industrial and home automation applications. Consequently, OEMs representing all kinds of devices are exploring this technology more seriously. That certainly explains why the EnOcean Alliance is seeing its membership grow so quickly.”

As the latest member of the EnOcean Alliance, BSC Software allows the status of all EnOcean-based equipment to be captured and visualized in real-time, as well as stored in a database for further utilization.  With this information, facility managers can start or shut down a wide range of disparate devices on a scheduled or remote basis as well as program event controls and timers. As a result, idle systems can be taken offline to eliminate unnecessary power consumption and restarted on an as-needed basis with a simple mouse click or securely activated via a smartphone. 

Collectively, Alliance participants represent more than 700 interoperable products, all based on EnOcean’s battery-free technology that converts ambient solar, thermal and motion energy into usable electrical energy.  This breakthrough technology is being employed in products ranging from wireless key card switches to occupancy sensors to room controllers, all of which play a vital role in contributing to improved energy efficiency and occupant comfort.

The work of EnOcean Alliance members continuously focuses on creating seamless communication between different EnOcean enabled devices and standardizing the technology on an international level. To meet the needs of a growing list of OEMs, the Alliance’s technical working group recently released a new version of the EnOcean Equipment Profiles (EEP 2.1). The expanded specification has already been published, containing approximately 100 profiles for the development of a variety of building automation solutions.

 “The rapid growth of the EnOcean Alliance is strong validation that OEMs recognize the advantages of wireless energy harvesting technology for a wide range of applications,” said Graham Martin, Chairman of the EnOcean Alliance.  “Of equal importance is the fact that this technology is playing an instrumental role in driving energy efficiency initiatives across multiple industries on a worldwide basis.”

About the EnOcean Alliance
Leading companies worldwide from the building sector collected to form the EnOcean Alliance, with the aim of promoting and establishing innovative automation solutions for sustainable buildings – and so to make buildings more energy-efficient, more flexible and lower in cost. The core technology of the Alliance is the energy harvesting wireless technology for flexibly positioned and service-free sensor solutions. The EnOcean Alliance aims to standardize and internationalize energy harvesting wireless technology, and is dedicated to creating interoperability between the products of OEM partners. More than 170 companies currently belong to the EnOcean Alliance. The headquarters of the non-profit organization is located in San Ramon, CA.  See also:  http://www.enocean-alliance.org/en/


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