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Is the Power of AI Worth the Power Needs of AI?
July 17th, 2024Halma Fire Safety Businesses & 2024 Financials Examined
July 16th, 2024
Mapping the Strategic Direction of ABB Smart Buildings Division 2024
This Research Note examines the emerging strategic priorities of ABB’s Smart Buildings division. We have mapped the acquisitions, strategic partnerships, investment activity, and divestments of the business unit to ascertain their growth ambitions, by categorizing the various relationships and deals by technology and investment type over recent years. This analysis is intended as a non-exhaustive indicator of their strategic direction in the smart buildings sector between October 2022 and June 2024, updating our previous Research Note published in September 2022. Strategy Mapping of ABB Smart Buildings Business Commercial Building Automation, Energy Management In May 2024, ABB Electrification Ventures announced a minority investment in Ndustrial, a US-based clean technology startup that has developed an AI-powered energy management platform. Also in May 2024, Edgecom Energy was a winner of ABB’s 2024 Startup Challenge. Founded in 2016 in Toronto, Canada, Edgecom Energy has created an AI-based virtual energy manager for energy management, designed to optimize energy usage and […]
Breaking Down the New DOE Definition of Zero Emissions Buildings
Last month, June 2024, the US Department of Energy (DOE) published the first ‘US National Definition of Zero Emissions Buildings’ to a tempered reaction from many in the buildings, energy, and environmental communities. After months of deliberation, the DOE’s somewhat simplistic definition reads: “A building is regarded as ‘zero emissions’ if it is highly energy efficient, does not emit greenhouse gasses directly from energy use, and is powered by clean energy.” On the surface, this definition may seem positive, but you don’t have to dig very deep to realize the problem it creates. The role of a definition is, in part, to reduce subjectivity, so the use of the term “highly efficient” seems dangerously open to interpretation. Definitions should also incorporate all aspects of a topic, so the omission of all non-operational energy emissions feels suspiciously limited. While the choice not to define clean energy by on/off-site resources appears to lack the ambition required to […]
Grid Edge Partners with Amey to Develop a Real-time Building Energy Management Platform
This Research Note examines the partnership announced on 3rd July 2024 between Amey, a provider of engineering, operations, and decarbonization solutions for UK infrastructure, Grid Edge, a startup offering an AI SaaS energy management platform for commercial buildings, and BMSI, one of the UK’s independent systems integrators of Building Energy Management Systems (BEMS). Amey Partnership Amey’s Complex Facilities division is a £550.3 million revenue business unit delivering critical facilities management (FM), asset condition, energy reduction, and decarbonization projects across the UK health, education, defence, and justice sectors. This includes providing secure facilities management services in 60 prisons, managing 141 schools and colleges across the UK, managing 18,600 military homes on behalf of the Ministry of Defence (MoD), and maintaining NHS estates for Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Trust and workplaces for public sector organizations. In partnership with Amey, Grid Edge has developed an AI SaaS platform, named E60+, that makes real-time changes to building assets […]
Helvar Connected Lighting Business & 2023 Financials Examined
In this Research Note, we examine Helvar Oy, the Finnish provider of lighting control and sensing solutions, one of three subsidiaries of Helvar Merca Oy, the ultimate parent company. This article reviews the firm’s main solutions, latest financial results, company reorganization, and focus on wellbeing, via the WELL standard. Founded in 1921, Helvar Oy AB, a family-owned technology company, provides continuous energy savings, wellbeing, and insights for smart buildings with lighting control (LC) and sensing solutions. Headquartered in Espoo, Finland, with regional offices in Sweden and the United Kingdom, and a network of over 80 partner companies, Helvar delivers solutions and services in selected geographies, those being Nordics, UK, Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Middle East, APAC and others. The company reports over 250 employees across Europe. Helvar Solutions With projects spanning all industries and applications, Helvar’s offering ranges from drivers and components through to wired and wireless lighting control solutions, supported by a cloud-based digital services […]
‘SaaSy’ Integrated Workplace Management System (IWMS) Vendors
More and more building data and systems are migrating to cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) platforms offering a new generation of off-premise services. Core management platforms for commercial buildings have been slow to catch the SaaS wave, as building stakeholders build trust in off-site data services and consider cost implications. Integrated Workplace Management System (IWMS) vendors are increasingly offering cloud services to commercial building operators and owners. Using a cloud-based SaaS approach, IWMS companies offer the utility of the software without the responsibilities or cost of operating, maintaining, and upgrading the underlying technology. The difference in cost will depend on a facility’s ability to tackle those responsibilities, where on-premise platforms run the risk of major reinvestment and SaaS models offer a consistent monthly cost, with flexibility to add or remove services. The facilities management space is bogged down in software acronyms. Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS), Computer Aided Facilities Management (CAFM), and Enterprise Asset […]
Gorilla Technology Group Business & 2023 Financials Examined
In this Research Note, we examine Gorilla Technology Group, the London, UK-headquartered security convergence business, based on their 2023 financial results, Annual Report, and investor presentation, June 2024. The Gorilla Technology IPO, was completed in July 2022, through a SPAC merger with dedicated “blank check company” Global SPAC Partners Co. Gorilla Technology Group Inc. (Nasdaq: GRRR) is a former Taiwanese security solution provider in video intelligence, network intelligence, and IoT. The company reports over 150 employees. Gorilla has operated in the field of video analytics since their incorporation in 2001. Their developed technologies in edge AI computing, video analytics, and operational technology (OT) security are the backbone of their suite of product and service solutions for a diversified customer base of commercial, industrial, municipal, and government entities. Gorilla Investor Presentation, June 2024 Gorilla Technology 2023 Financial Highlights Full-year 2023 revenues of $64.7 million marked a substantial 189% increase year-over-year. After a 47% revenue decline in […]
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