EnergySavvy has closed a $3 million investment round and welcomes Pivotal Investments’ Managing Director Bradley Zenger to our board of directors.

Pivotal Investments, a cleantech-focused venture capital firm based in Portland, OR, led the financing round alongside other leading Pacific Northwest investors including Summit Capital and investors from the Northwest Energy Angels.

Zenger said the decision to invest in EnergySavvy was clear because of the company’s track record and traction with mainstream utility customers.

“Utility energy efficiency spending has grown by an average of 25 percent per year overthe last five years, to $6 billion in 2011 providing a compelling market opportunity,” Zenger said. “We believe EnergySavvy is an emerging leader, bringing innovative, valuable, software solutions to an industry that increasingly demands real-time, data driven transparency, measurement and results.”

In the past 12 months, EnergySavvy has announced business with utilities such as Puget Sound Energy, Black Hills Energy and Long Island Power Authority. In that same time span, EnergySavvy doubled its team size and opened an office in Boston to serve its growing East Coast customer base. It also rolled out its Program Optix software platform to enable utilities to optimize their programs using real-time analytics.

EnergySavvy has been on a solid growth trajectory. This investment enables accelerated product development and an increase in our field presence to enhance our customer service. We are adding staff in both our Seattle and Cambridge, Mass. offices. For more information about the software development, client solutions and client engagement positions opening up, please visit our jobs page.

“We’re innovating with our customers to transform the way energy efficiency is quantified and delivered,” said EnergySavvy CEO and Co-Founder Aaron Goldfeder. “Our software is increasingly becoming the obvious choice for energy efficiency programs because it helps achieve more energy efficiency gains per ratepayer dollar with increased transparency and accountability.”

About EnergySavvy

EnergySavvy is a Seattle-based software company with the mission to transform how energy efficiency is quantified and delivered. The company is led by alumni from aQuantive, Microsoft and Amazon and is in its fourth year of operations. The company brings together expertise in software, user experience, analytics and energy efficiency to deliver software-as-service solutions that clients love.

About Pivotal Investments

 Pivotal Investments is an early stage venture capital firm dedicated to identifying and partnering with the most promising entrepreneurs to build leading companies primarily in the Pacific Northwest.  We work actively and collaboratively with management teams to build companies that scale beyond the Northwest, generating long-term value.

The first half of 2012 has been the hottest on record in the U.S., and in many regions, people are blasting their air conditioner 24 hours a day to keep their homes comfortable and safe. Not only is the electricity used to power these air conditioners expensive, but in many regions of the country, it is generated by burning coal.

Unfortunately, converting coal to electricity is an inefficient process with 70% of the coal’s potential energy lost during the conversion to electricity at the power plant and another 9% lost over the power grid. Since only 28% of coal’s potential energy is delivered to the home, using that energy efficiently can have a major impact in reducing the amount of coal that each home uses.

Our Math

To cool the average home in the Southeast, a central air conditioner consumes 4,050 kilowatt-hours (kWh) annually. For electricity generated from coal, the process of delivering those kWh’s looks like this:

1. Start with 4,870 pounds of coal, which contains the equivalent of 14,830 kWh of potential energy.
2. Convert that coal to electricity at a typical power plant and you lose 70% of the potential energy, which brings you to 4,449 kWh.
3. Of the remaining potential energy, 9% is lost as the electricity travels along the grid, resulting in 4,050 kWh delivered to the home.

Given the inefficiency of generating and delivering electricity from coal, it’s important for people to be smart about how they use the kWh’s that reach their homes. By making cost-effective improvements to their homes’ energy efficiency, homeowners can reduce the amount of coal it takes to cool their homes this summer.

By upgrading the central A/C for an average home in the Southeast from a SEER 10 to an ENERGY STAR rated central A/C with a SEER of 14.5, a homeowner could reduce the home’s cooling consumption by a third to 3,300 pounds of coal.

Combining this A/C upgrade with duct sealing and duct insulation as well as sealing the leaks in the home’s exterior could reduce the amount of coal burned to cool the home to just 2,000 pounds–less than half of what the average home in the Southeast consumes.

Reducing the original coal pile to 2,000 pounds prevents nearly 6,300 pounds of carbon dioxide, 36 pounds of sulfur dioxide and 16 pounds of nitrogen oxide from being emitted into the atmosphere annually (Environmental Protection Agency). It could also save the home around $300 on their electricity bills each year.

To find out how you can reduce your coal pile this summer, complete this easy online home energy survey to find out what upgrades make the most sense in your home. If you decide to upgrade your air conditioner, don’t miss out on rebates from utilities and governmental agencies in your area.

If you happen to live in an area of the country that doesn’t use a lot of coal to generate your electricity, you’re not off the hook. Similar calculations can be made for any fuel source for electricity: we encourage everyone to use energy in their home wisely.

In 2011, media outlets such as the New Yorker started touting news around the “Rebound Effect” of residential energy efficiency. According to the US think tank, Breakthrough Institute (BTI), a rebound effect causes consumers who choose energy efficient products to consume more energy through new purchases. If accurate, this effect would call into question the efficacy of energy efficiency as a strategy.

Climate Progress evaluated the data used to support BTI’s argument along with other consumption data sets and found that BTI’s data doesn’t hold up under the magnifying glass. They published an article refuting the “rebound effect” in energy efficiency in January.

The truth may be somewhere in between. The data the Climate Progress shows for the energy per capita usage in California vs. the rest of the country seems to clearly indicate that energy efficiency works over the long term. On the other hand, our customers have seen anecdotal cases where a homeowner, upon completing an energy retrofit sees their energy bills drop substantially, decides to put that savings into the purchase of a new hot tub.

That uncertainty, on a home by home basis, and more broadly across utility energy efficiency programs, is why measurement and evaluation is important. But it’s not easy. The savings from efficiency measures implemented in homes are often measured through different methods.  The common approaches include a deemed savings calculation (from regional technical forums or approved technical manuals), modeled savings (from approved and calibrated home energy modeling tools) and actual post-implementation utility billing data (often compared to a control group). Measures may be saving more or less than expected or modeled in each home, depending on the characteristics of the home and behavior of the occupants after a retrofit.

If your utility program is wrestling with these post-implementation savings calculations and monitoring, share your thoughts. Is there a “rebound effect” in your home energy efficiency programs?

Open data standards will promote rapid innovation, industry growth and energy savings

EnergySavvy is excited to be among the companies announcing support for the Green Button initiative today. We think Green Button, as a common language for energy usage information, has the potential to foster new innovation and growth for energy efficiency companies.
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