California-based EnergyOrbit and Massachusetts firm Ekotrope are working together to help utilities streamline energy efficiency programmes.

This should help businesses and residents benefit from efficiently tracking and managing cost-effective measures that help protect the environment.

As the world increasingly focuses on enacting efforts to protect the environment, the two energy efficiency companies are partnering to encourage businesses and residents to embrace energy efficiency programmes delivered through utilities and third-party implementers.

EenergyOrbit, which offers software for cloud energy efficiency and demand-side management (DSM), and Ekotrope, which facilitates energy ratings and data sharing for residential buildings, have formed a technical integration, initially focused on new Energy Star homes.

The integration recognises the growth in energy efficiency programmes, including distributed energy and electrification. It enables home energy raters to push automatically and seamlessly Ekotrope’s assessment data to EnergyOrbit for real-time utility programme validation and payment via a shared Salesforce API. Previously, organisations would need to go to another provider first to validate home energy scores, identify home locations and more, adding time and the potential for error.

The integration should make it easier for utility or third-party programme administrators to factor ratings data into their energy efficiency programmes, beginning with pre-qualification of data. Ekotrope and EnergyOrbit estimate a potential 60 to 80 per cent time savings through their integration.

“Partnering with Ekotrope is a logical step to streamline energy efficiency assessment for our customers,” said Udi Merhav, CEO of EnergyOrbit. “We see the coming growth in more distributed energy and electrification implementations. This broadens our footprint in the DSM landscape to best serve our commitment to protecting the environment and addressing climate change.”

Ziv Rozenblum, CEO of Ekotrope, added: “We want to provide a data highway for our customers. This new integration with EnergyOrbit removes the human element from data transfer and validation, providing a more streamlined process. This is quicker and more accurate, helping eliminate quality control headaches, allowing builders to make smarter decisions, and delivering a best-in-class solution to our shared customers.”

Energy Star is a federal programme run by the US Environmental Protection Agency and US Department of Energy that promotes energy efficiency. It uses different standardised methods to provide information on the energy consumption of products and devices.

Founded in 2009 and based in San Francisco, EnergyOrbit specialises in cloud energy efficiency and DSM operations. It is deployed with utilities, programme administrators and third-party implementers across North America, enabling its customers to realise an average of up to 75 per cent improved efficiency and savings in their DSM operations. The company empowers utilities to deploy DSM programmes in hours, scale programmes and portfolios efficiently, and streamline utility customer relationships, partners and internal communications seamlessly.

Founded in 2011, Ekotrope offers home energy rating software that is used in about a fifth of new homes built in the USA each year. Powered by its proprietary hourly energy algorithm, Ekotrope Rater streamlines and automates every step of energy modelling from hourly savings calculations to utility programme requirements verification.