Schneider Electric teams with Cisco to deliver transformational energy management capability

Collaboration between Cisco and Schneider Electric will provide solutions that manage energy use across the entire building portfolio

SOURCE: Schneider Electric

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Schneider Electric, a specialist in energy management, has teamed with Cisco to provide a comprehensive energy management solution that monitors and manages energy consumption across all building domains. With this combined solution, building owners and managers, architects, contractors, and IT managers will now be able to optimize energy efficiencies and business operations to save energy.

Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure active energy management architecture portfolio offers a single point of access that connects five domains of business expertise – power, data centers, process and machines, building control, and physical security – all within an open and flexible technology framework. The EcoStruxure architecture integrates with Cisco EnergyWise embedded on the Cisco network infrastructure to provide a holistic building management solution, managing all energy-consuming building assets, such as HVAC, lighting, security and, for the first time, reduce energy waste generated from IT/IP assets, including PCs, phones, Catalyst switches, Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) endpoint devices and other IT devices.

With rising energy costs in buildings accounting for 42 percent of energy usage worldwide, there is an impetus to find ways of reducing energy consumption with these IP/IT devices within buildings and across the network.

“Looking for innovative ways to increase energy efficiency and enable business performance within buildings is what Schneider Electric does every day with thousands of customers worldwide,” said Chris Curtis, president and CEO, Buildings Business, Schneider Electric. “Combining Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure architecture and Cisco EnergyWise provides organizations with the capability to go one step further and manage the energy consumption of IT/IP devices and PCs in the building management system domain for the first time. We are very excited about this opportunity and what our joint innovation will mean for reducing energy consumption in buildings across the globe.”

For example, two schools in Europe used the combined solution from Schneider Electric and Cisco in a pilot project and are currently saving approximately 30 percent of their IT energy, resulting in an overall reduction of close to 6 percent of their overall energy spend. Delivering a rapid, measurable return on investment (ROI), the combined solution provides users with the ability to reduce overall IT operating costs by up to 30 percent and overall building costs by close to 9 percent; to meet regulatory and compliance mandates; and to accomplish corporate sustainability goals.

In addition, the new combined solution enables organizations to:

• Monitor, report and manage energy usage across the entire corporate network or real estate infrastructure
• Create a more energy-efficient architecture for the IP/IT domain outside of the data center
• Better control where and how energy is being used to more intelligently and efficiently respond to smart grid signals
• Realize a new source of energy savings to fulfill corporate sustainability requirements, free up capital resources and quickly improve an organization’s overall bottom line

Schneider Electric and Cisco have worked together for more than a decade and provide organizations with the tools to help reduce energy consumption up to 30 percent by taking advantage of the network as a platform for energy management. This relationship has extended from collaborations of unified communications in the data center and network closets to video surveillance and IP security. This expanded relationship further extends Schneider Electric's established global leadership in energy management with Cisco's industry leading IT energy management solution delivered via its Catalyst switch platforms to provide sustainable energy reduction, workforce efficiencies and overall improved business performance.

www.schneider-electric.com Schneider Electric