Business View Magazine November-December 2018

180 181 Once people began trusting us, they’d ask if we could do the work for them. So, we hired sub-con- tractors, and now with our own labor as well, we have the ability to implement those projects. In all, we have 130 employees. Most of our revenue is through construction of rooftop solar arrays or energy efficiency upgrades–boiler improvements, HVAC, lighting,water fixtures–we recommend and actually do the work. It’s not just the physical im- plementation, but also understanding the various incentives and subsidies available from the govern- ment and utility companies that can help with costs or extend the amount of work an owner can do.” BVM: How do you evaluate energy usage in a building? Perlman: “Our customers often own several buildings, and when we asked why they chose a certain one for us to work on, it was either they’d just bought it, or wanted to sell it, or it was the building they were spending the most money on. They had no framework for evaluating and un- derstanding energy and water usage. So, in 2010, we released Energy Scorecards, a software as a service (SaaS) product that takes in utility bill and building information and compares it to a larger datacenter of building portfolios.We have 30,000 buildings in that database, so we can see whether an apartment building is a good or poor perform- er in comparison. There are also sub-categories for areas like heating and cooling, water heating, and lighting. It’s a great energy performance eval- uation tool. “The best way to describe the services of our company is: Find, Fix, Follow. The Find phase involves engaging with a portfolio - gathering BRIGHT POWER, INC. all the building information like utilities and usage; analyzing it; and prioritizing the focus. The Fix phase starts with sending engineers into the building to evaluate specific systems. Then we put a scope of work togeth- er, iterate that with the owner, look at what incentives are available, and finalize what to do. Then we imple- ment it. “Follow is the final step. It can be as light a touch as the Energy Scorecards platform, which is analysis based on monthly utility bills to provide guid- ance on performance and whether we should intervene to improve it. That’s the most basic level. Then we have Mobius, our Continuous Management Service, where we watch the building in real time and generate alerts based on sensor data or meter data. It enables us to react much more quickly to any changes, so operations run smoothly, tenants are comfortable, and headaches are kept to a minimum.” Jamil Ellis, Bright Power CTO, adds, “Our tech team built the original Energy Scorecards and Mobius software, and we continue to build new features and maintain those we have.We are always pushing the boundaries in technology for buildings, and that type of work is done in-house.” BVM: What sets Bright Power apart from competitors? Perlman: “There is some similar Our goal is to make it easier for companies that own and manage real estate to have buildings that are energy efficient and comfortable, using as clean energy and as little water as possible. JEFFREY PERLMAN PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER