Earlier this month, Tendril Networks and Siemens Energy, Inc. announced a strategic alliance to market the Tendril Connect platform to utilities. Tendril Connect, the core of Tendril’s home energy management offering, is one of the most comprehensive home energy management solutions available. The Siemens partnership could do big things for Tendril by connecting it with a new set of potential utility customers.
With its Tendril Connect platform, Tendril is aiming to get into the home for the benefit of both the utility and the consumer. It consists of a suite of energy management applications that will not just collect and analyze data but enable remote control of home systems on behalf of the utility and the consumer. The platform will enable personal energy use visualization, demand response, load control, energy efficiency, electric vehicle charging, and on-site renewable energy integration.
With deregulation and competitive retail electricity markets on the rise in the United States and abroad, Tendril is also setting its sights on competitive electricity suppliers by offering customized services that will match customers with the best suppliers and pricing plans given their energy usage behaviors.
Siemens, by virtue of its deep presence in the U.S. utility sector and its project management and implementation capabilities, is in a position to take Tendril’s technology to the next level. Tendril already counts over 30 utilities as customers, ranging from small municipal utilities to major investor-owned utilities such as SCE, ComEd, and National Grid and competitive suppliers such as Reliant and Green Mountain. Through its partnership with Siemens, Tendril will be on the fast track to landing new customers with larger footprints and, with any luck, selling them more fully-fledged versions of its platform.
In addition to augmenting these existing utility relationships, Siemens’ venture capital wing, SVC, will help sharpen Tendril’s market strategies and support its financial and operational planning efforts. The size of SVC’s investment into Tendril was not disclosed, however.
In the United States, the near-term path to success for home energy management players will be through partnerships with utilities. In other countries, such as the United Kingdom, home energy management companies such as AlertMe and PassivSystems are making a play by selling straight to the consumer. While Tendril’s long-term ambitions are international, it’s focusing on the United States today, and its partnership with Siemens will help cement the relationships it needs to expand its uptake in the United States.
Article by Eric Bloom.
