Vancouver Mayor, local firms head to China to court green-business deals

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson is off to China on Sunday, pitching the city as a green capital.
Robertson will lead a delegation of 22 local firms to press the flesh and ink deals with Chinese customers.
“The purpose of this business mission is to land investment and jobs for Vancouver companies in China’s growing market,” Robertson said Wednesday.

The cost of the trip — dubbed the Vancouver Green Capital Business Mission — for Vancouver taxpayers is estimated at $45,000. The 22 companies joining the delegation will kick in another $350,000.

Robertson said he wants to capitalize on the city’s global exposure attained during the 2010 Olympics. It will be the first trade-focused mission to China by a Vancouver mayor.

Robertson will be in China from Sept. 5 to 16 visiting such cities as Beijing, Guangzhou and Hong Kong.
The highlight of the trip will be Vancouver’s “Green Capital Day” at the Vancouver Pavilion Sept. 10 during the World’s Fair in Shanghai, Robertson said.

“We will introduce Vancouver’s world-class technology companies to Chinese companies and government officials to help deals happen, and ensure the Chinese understand the opportunity here in Vancouver for them,” said Robertson.

Pulse Energy, one of the Vancouver firms going with Robertson, is making its first foray into China to market its energy-efficiency software.

“They are jumping head-first into the world of energy-efficiency,” said Pulse CEO David Helliwell. “Vancouver is clearly being recognized.”

Bernie Magnan, chief economist with the Vancouver Board of Trade, said other North American cities, including Portland, are also vying to become clean-energy cities. But he called the China mission a “step in the right direction” for Vancouver.

“It’s who you know,” said Magnan, who has done business in China. “You have to establish trust over time. It doesn’t happen overnight.”

“It’s a good opportunity for the City of Vancouver to market in China,” added Kenny Zhang, senior research analyst with the Asia Pacific Foundation.

China is paying more attention to green-thinking, he said, and this is a chance for Vancouver to position itself in the field of green technology.

“People in China would know that Vancouver is a nice place to live, but they may not know that it’s a place to do business as well,” he said. “They will probably not know until we tell them.”

jbermingham@theprovince.com
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Mayor Gregor Robertson announced today that he will be leading a major business mission to China this month, with the goal of attracting new jobs and investment to Vancouver.

“This business mission to China will deliver real results for Vancouver – we’ve spent months preparing and we are confident we can secure a number of business deals that will directly benefit our region,” said Mayor Robertson. “We’ll be capitalizing on our momentum from the 2010 Winter Games by highlighting some of our top green businesses from Vancouver. China has set aggressive goals to promote low-carbon economic development and there is a huge opportunity for us to foster closer connections between Vancouver’s leading technology companies and the emerging green economy in China.”

The Vancouver Green Capital Business Mission has been developed over the last several months by the Vancouver Economic Development Commission (VEDC), the City of Vancouver, government agencies like NRC-IRAP, agencies like the Canadian Trade Service, private sector partners like Cleanworks, Lighthouse Sustainable Building Centre, RBC, and companies from the Metro Vancouver Commerce Program. Previous Vancouver Mayors have visited China but did not focus on promoting Vancouver’s economy.

22 local businesses have been selected by the VEDC to participate in the business mission. They represent three of Vancouver’s fastest growing and most innovative sectors: clean technology, green building, and digital media. Delegates will take part in several one-on-one business meetings with Chinese executives and government agencies, as well as showcasing their technologies to potential partners.

“The Vancouver Green Capital Mission will especially focus on business matching and investment opportunities, similar to what Vancouver did during the 2010 Games,” said Lee Malleau, CEO of the Vancouver Economic Development Commission. “This is another ideal opportunity to use a major global event as a platform to promote bilateral trade, which leads to additional investment and employment growth, especially with one of the fastest growing markets on the planet. We are helping our Vancouver companies deepen the connections they made during the Olympics, and make new ones that will generate similar results.”

The partnership between the City and Vancouver’s local businesses with Mayor Robertson leading the delegation is a unique way to help support Vancouver’s economy, says Tourism Vancouver Chairman James Terry. “From our perspective, the City of Vancouver is extremely well-positioned as the gateway to North America for Chinese visitors who will now be able to visit Canada as an approved destination,” said Terry.  “Vancouver’s brand is already strong among business and leisure travelers from China and the Mayor’s visit will further solidify our city as a destination of choice.”

Mayor Robertson has made economic development a top priority while in office. With a background in business, he has worked to have City Hall assist where it can in supporting local businesses. This kind of support is needed and is appreciated, say local business leaders:

“China has clearly asserted its intentions to invest in energy efficiency as a way to manage the rapid growth of its cities, and they have a large and growing need for Pulse Energy management software. Mayor Robertson knows that companies and technologies like ours can help them achieve those goals while at the same time acknowledging that we can learn a great deal from the development of China’s green industries.”‬

- David Helliwell, Chief Executive Officer, Pulse Energy

“We’ve seen Vancouver develop as an international hub for digital media in recent years, and we’re pleased to be partnering with Mayor Robertson and the VEDC on the Green Capital Business Mission. China is a market that we want to expand into and the meetings we have in Shanghai will develop new business connections, grow our name recognition, and provide more exposure for Vancouver’s top-notch digital talent.”

- Warren Franklin, Chief Executive Officer, Rainmaker Entertainment

“With its mandate to move towards solid-state lighting, huge infrastructure programs and rapid development, there is a massive opportunity for our energy efficient control technology to make inroads in China’s solid state lighting industry. Vancouver is developing a reputation as the ‘green capital’ and by meeting with companies in China, we can strengthen our own business at home.”

-Jeanette Jackson, CEO, Light-Based Technologies

“China’s rapidly growing green economy provides enormous opportunities for the green building expertise we have in Vancouver. This business mission to China will allow us to build connections with Chinese companies and help us grow our company on a global scale.”

- Martin Nielsen, MAIBC, P.Eng., LEED^® AP, Principal, Busby Perkins + Will

With China’s economy growing at a rapid pace, Vancouver is uniquely positioned to be a global hub for clean energy, and Mayor Robertson understands that we can achieve success by forging partnerships with China. China is a major opportunity for Westport and we’re looking forward to expanding our presence in China and developing new connections and partnerships across the clean tech and alternative energy sectors on this business mission.”

- Nicholas Sonntag, Executive VP Westport Innovations; President Westport Asia.

“Digital media – visual effects, animation, games – is rapidly growing in Vancouver. Image Engine wants to expand our reach into new markets, especially ones as large as China. This business mission gives us the opportunity to connect with Chinese companies with whom we can collaborate and grow our company in the process.”

- Shawn Walsh, Visual Effects Executive Producer, Image Engine

The Vancouver Green Capital Business Mission will coincide with Vancouver Day at the Shanghai Expo. Vancouver is one of only three cities from North America with a stand-alone pavilion at the World Expo. The Vancouver Pavilion, which is a partnership between the City of Vancouver, BC Forestry Innovation Investment, and Canada Wood, showcases Vancouver’s sustainable urban planning and green building practices, which have made the city an international model for urban design.

Media contact:

Kevin Quinlan

Executive Assistant

Office of the Mayor

City of Vancouver

Office: 604.873.7232

Cell: 778.995.2264

www.mayorofvancouver.ca/blog

Jessie Lloyd

Vancouver Economic Development Commission

Cell: 604-351-9995

jessie@jlloydconsulting.com

Edward (Eddie) Robinson, Sr. and Joel Dundas have been selected as Energy Coordinators of Hartley Bay, home of the Gitga’at Nation.

Eddie Robinson

Eddie is a Gitga’at member of the Raven Clan, the son of Annetta and Jimmy Robinson. He has extensive work experience with the Hartley Bay Band Council as the Maintenance Supervisor and project lead on many construction projects. Eddie has worked as the community ‘internet guru’ for community wireless connectivity since 2003, managing the community system and assisting clients with their connectivity issues, antennas, and more, and has worked with Pulse Energy during their deployment of equipment throughout Hartley Bay. There isn’t anything Eddie can’t fix or make work – he is the MacGuyver of Hartley Bay.

Joel is a Gitga’at member of the Blackfish Clan, the son of Elizabeth Dundas and Bert Pridge, and an elected Councillor in Hartley Bay. His wife and children currently reside in Prince Rupert – but Joel has worked extensively in Hartley Bay over the years on projects ranging from power pole installations, housing construction, the fish hatchery, to fish enhancement projects in the territory. Joel has a good understanding of computer technology and programs and a keen interest in ensuring Hartley Bay has the best possible energy technologies to meet the community’s needs for decades to come.

Joel Dundas

Clean Energy: Getting a Pulse on Vancouver
By Jeffrey Simpson

Pulse Energy is based on a simple idea: Using less energy makes bottom-line sense. But implementing simple ideas requires minds schooled in complexity.

Vancouver, seductive and beautiful, remains too much a branch-plant kind of town. Compared with Seattle and Portland, to say nothing of northern California, it needs more innovation to push homegrown enterprises to do business outside the local market.

David Helliwell, 38, is trying to do just that. In five years, Mr. Helliwell and his silent partner, a man who made a lot of money developing and selling a large business, has built Pulse Energy into a company that employs 50 people, has enjoyed close to 100-per-cent quarter-over-quarter growth and, if all goes well, might be employing hundreds of people in the near future. From a company whose first contract in 2006 was with an aboriginal band of 100 people, Pulse now works throughout Western Canada and is branching out to other countries.

Mr. Helliwell is building the company from Vancouver, his hometown but a place he’d left to work for many years in Paris, Ottawa and Australia, where he tried his hand at being a professional surfer. He also worked for a year with his father, John, a distinguished economist at the University of British Columbia, on researching the “brain drain,” a hot-button issue a decade ago.

His father thought the fear overblown, said so vigorously in his writings, and might now take some satisfaction in seeing that his son’s company has recently recruited two high-flying professionals from Orbitz in Chicago.

“People from around the world want to live here,” David Helliwell said the other day. “We can play a role in making Vancouver a hub for clean technology.”

Pulse Energy is based on a simple idea: Using less energy makes bottom-line sense. Implementing simple ideas, however, requires minds schooled in complexity to maximize results. So Pulse’s employees include electrical engineers, mathematicians and computer engineers working on software systems to help companies evaluate their energy efficiency and introduce better ways of making further efficiency gains.

Bottom-line improvement gets married with social objectives at Pulse, because the knock-on impacts of greater energy efficiency include fewer greenhouse-gas emissions. The marriage might explain, in part, why three former heads of the Vancouver chapter of Engineers Without Borders are working for Pulse.

Commercial property owners are a prime target for Pulse, as are public institutions with many buildings such as health and education departments and universities. Pulse designed energy efficiency programs for the Vancouver Olympics, and company representatives are off to London to advise Olympic officials on the 2012 Summer Games.

The B.C. government and Vancouver-area municipalities have made promoting clean energy a key policy objective. The federal attitude toward clean energy is more ambivalent.

Ottawa’s Sustainable Technology Development Fund gave money to Pulse. But the best way to spur clean energy would be to price carbon emissions, either by a tax or a cap-and-trade system, neither of which appeals to the Harper government. Climate change for the Harperites, after all, is a subject best avoided or played down.

“Not having national action generally slows things down,” Mr. Helliwell says. “This is the way the world is going, so why don’t we figure out how to get ahead?” Good question. He adds about carbon pricing: “People should pay an appropriate price for something that will ultimately hurt them.”

Mr. Helliwell wanted a company not dependent on the vagaries of government policies or subsidies, such as solar or wind energy. Energy efficiency improvements, by contrast, are all about self-interest for companies and individuals. And companies are sometimes helped by a region’s reputation. Being from B.C., he says, gains Pulse a good hearing in places such as California, because of the province’s reputation in the fight against climate change.

Who knows where Pulse Energy will be in five years? The free market is a dynamic – sometimes cruel – place, full of competitors in a field that common sense dictates will be a growing one. But if the past five years offer any guide, the marriage of venture capital, some government money, smart people with a cause, and a solid business plan should mean good days ahead for Pulse and maybe, some day, a company of some size headquartered in Vancouver, owned by Vancouverites.

Pulse Energy helps client Polaris Realty (Canada) Ltd. reveal energy savings and win top green building award

VANCOUVER – AXA Place, a Polaris Realty (Canada) Ltd. office tower at West Hastings and Burrard, has received the BC Building Owners and Managers Association’s prestigious 2010 “Earth Award” and high praise from the City of Vancouver and BC Hydro.

Reflective gold on the outside, the 30-year veteran of the Vancouver skyline has been retro-fitted using leading edge technology and is now green to the core. A new state of the art building management system and real-time energy monitoring system helped AXA Place achieve energy savings of 20 per cent in 2009 over 2008 with a further 15 per cent so far this year.

Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson congratulated Polaris Realty and AXA Place. “It’s great to see a Vancouver building win this year’s Earth Award. At City Hall, we’re working hard to promote and expand green building technology throughout our city. It’s encouraging to see a local business take a leadership role on energy efficiency, recycling, and water conservation – we need more businesses to take that kind of initiative.”

BC Hydro Senior Manager Murray Bond stated: “It’s wonderful to see key industry players take a lead role, improving the built environment while reducing the building’s environmental footprint. This is the type of building we all want to work in.”

Paul LaBranche, Executive Vice President of the Building Owners and Managers Association, described AXA Place as “a role model to the industry for demonstrating effective environmental initiatives and building practices.”

“One of the impressive green features is the rain water harvesting process currently being installed,” said Polaris Energy and Sustainability Manager Toli Sidiropoulos. “It will provide 100 per cent of the building’s irrigation needs.”

AXA’s recycling facilities have been expanded to include lobby recycling stations. And, the tower has a tenant “Green Team.”

“Establishing an AXA Place Green Team has generated a high level of awareness amongst tenants and is promoting energy saving behaviour at the workplace and at their homes,” Sidiropoulos says.

Sidiropoulos and BC Hydro consultant Jennifer Davis (TurnLeaf Consulting) are currently planning an AXA “Eco-fair” August 18 to further encourage tenant involvement in energy conservation.

Join Toli Sidiropoulos for an informative 45 minute webinar on energy management where Toli will outline how AXA Place reduced its energy consumption by almost 20% in one year.

B.C. Hydro is preparing to roll out smart meters in every home. The tech industry is ready to jump on board, but are government and citizens prepared? By Colleen Kimmett for TheTyee.ca

Part I – Is B.C. Ready for Smart Meters?

The Olympics were a key moment for David Helliwell and his start-up company, Pulse Energy. Eight venues, outfitted with Pulse energy monitoring technology, allowed visitors to view online how much energy was being used at those sites at any given time. It marked the first time that any Olympic site collected and reported energy consumption data, and it attracted a considerable amount of media attention as part of Vancouver’s “Greenest Games” billing.

The high-profile project led to more lucrative deals for Pulse – Helliwell says the London 2012 Olympic organizing committee is now interested in tracking energy use at its venues – and also pushed smart meters into the public sphere.

The potential for business development around smart meter deployment is huge, says Helliwell and other industry experts. But as utilities roll out these programs around the world, they are being met with public opposition and concerns about privacy, reliability and cost.

Smart meters are coming to B.C. – but are we ready for them? And what can we learn from those jurisdictions that are ahead of the curve?

‘We need to change our behaviour’: Campbell

Smart meters are where consumers plug into the smart grid of the future. Smart meters relay real-time energy use data to utilities and customers, and can also communicate with home appliances, opening up opportunities for tighter demand-side management and increased conservation – especially during times of peak demand, when electricity is most expensive.

In 2007, Premier Gordon Campbell told delegates at the annual convention of the Union of B.C. Municipalities that within five years 1.7 million homes and businesses in B.C. would have a smart meter.

“We need to change our behaviour and when we do, we will all save money,” Campbell said.

But the implementation never happened and smart meters fell off the public radar – until the Olympics and, not long after, the GLOBE conference on business and the environment. There B.C. Hydro’s Bev Van Ruyven (now its executive vice-president) reiterated the province’s commitment to smart grid technology and announced that Hydro would “substantially complete” its smart metering program by 2012.

Clean Energy Act ‘changed the whole picture’

And not long after that, the provincial government released the Clean Energy Act, in which smart meters and smart grid infrastructure are a cornerstone. Not only that, but, under the act, these and other “marquee” energy projects do not have to obtain approval from the B.C. Utilities Commission.

This “changed the whole picture” for the industry, says Ludo Bertsch, president of Horizon Technologies. Bertsch has spent the last two decades designing smart grid hardware and software, and now mostly does consulting work.

“The B.C. Clean Energy Act was very important in that it laid out the foundation to say we are not going to pull it, we are going to move ahead with smart meters.

“Before, we were getting the message out there that this [smart metering] is important,” Bertsch says. “But leading up, we were concerned that government was going to pull it. It’s a lot of money.”

B.C. Hydro has budgeted $660 million for the entire program. That includes the smart meters, telecommunications system, data management system, in home feedback tools and conservation rates.

Smart meter carrots and sticks

If a smart meter is the carrot to encourage customers to conserve energy and shift time of use, rate structuring is the stick. B.C. Hydro’s conservation rate, also known as a tiered or graduated rate, came into effect April 1, 2010. Under this rate, residential customers get, over a two-month billing period, 1,350 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity at 6.27 cents per kWh. Every additional kWh after that costs 8.78 cents.

Some utilities have also introduced peak pricing; during times of high demand, the cost per kilowatt hour is higher to encourage people to switch activities to off-peak times.

In 2006, B.C. Hydro launched an experiment in peak pricing with its two-year Advanced Metering Initiative. Roughly 2,000 households in the Lower Mainland, Fort St. John and Campbell River were set up with smart meters and monitoring software.

The goal, according to one B.C. Hydro report, was to “determine whether customers respond to pricing signals and information on energy use and to determine the magnitude of the responses.”

In one test group, participants were charged 23.5 cents more per kWh for electricity used during peak hours (8 to 11 a.m. and 4 to 9 p.m.)

According to an executive summary of the first year of the project, residents in test groups used on average 11.5 per cent less electricity during evening peak periods compared to the control groups that had no difference in rates.

‘1.7 million customers leads to a lot of business’

Part of Bertsch’s work has been to help manufacturers respond to demand-side management by making appliances smart grid compatible. Whirlpool recently announced it will release one million “Smart Dryers” by next year, which will have the capacity to automatically shut off or go into no-heat mode during peak hours.

“This is huge,” says Bertsch. “The industry in B.C. is starting to come to terms with the opportunities to come. There’s going to be a huge industry installing (smart meters), implementing them, you’ll have home automation, you’ll have smart phones… 1.7 million customers leads to a lot of business.”

Burnaby-based Clevest Solutions Inc. is supporting the deployment of more than 8 million smart meters in the US, China, Europe and Philippines.

Bill Lee, Clevest’s marketing manager, says errors can happen when smart meters aren’t deployed properly. When an old meter is swapped out for a new one, the existing billing information must be recorded correctly and the new meter must be correctly identified with the appropriate residence.

“Clevest enables field technicians to collect data and verify the installation before they leave the site,” Lee wrote in an email to The Tyee. “With a single mobile handheld device powered by Clevest, a technician can perform a smart meter installation with a barcode scanning of meters, photo capture of old meters to verify last meter readings, and collect GPS coordinates of the installed meters.”

When utilities are swapping literally hundreds of meters a day – as may be the case if B.C. Hydro is to achieve its smart metering goals – there is a lot of potential for error.

Just last week, California’s PG&E issued an apology to customers for poor customer service related to the installation of its smart meters.

According to a report in the San Jose Business Journal, PG&E said it “would also begin posting weekly information on the number of smart meters having problems and will increase the number of “side-by-side meter tests” to 300, comparing data from old meters to new smart meters.”

This was only after a group of citizens in Bakersfield, California launched a petition against and later sued the investor-owned utility, alleging they were overcharged.

Privacy, security concerns at forefront

Security is also a major concern with smart meters.

According to one security analyst report, smart meter networks are open to hacking, which leaves the grid vulnerable to attack and customers vulnerable to privacy breaches.

This is where federal government regulators must come in to develop smart grid standards, says Bertsch.

Bertsch sits on a newly-formed task force, part of the Standards Council of Canada, that is looking at how to address privacy, security and other issues, and is also involved with a smart grid task force in U.S. National Institute for Standards and Technology.

“Privacy is a big one,” he says. “In the states they are very concerned with privacy. It is a top issue that is being dealt with.”

Although Canada has been “a little bit slow to the mark,” its making progress as more smart grid technologies are deployed. As he sees it, where the U.S. goes, so goes Canada.

“Eventually, it’s going to happen here,” Bertsch says. “We have common links between our electrical systems, and you can’t have that kind of action going on in the states, with that kind of money, and not follow it in Canada.”

Read full series from the Tyee

Peter Mitham showcases Pulse Energy’s work in the BC Hydro Continuous Optimization program in BC Tech 2010’s article entitled, ‘Best Space on Earth’. From design to energy monitoring, clean construction raises the bar… Read full article

Pulse Energy partners with BCIT to create jobs for residents of diesel-powered communities in BC

VANCOUVER, BC – Pulse Energy, with the support of the BC Innovative Clean Energy Fund and Western Economic Diversification’s Community Adjustment Fund, has partnered with the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) to create Canada’s first Remote Community Energy Coordinator training program.

Energy Coordinators from Hartley Bay and Haida Gwaii came to Vancouver to learn about remote community energy management from Pulse Energy and BCIT instructors. Both the software company and the educational institution have been working in remote communities for years, and see the need for increased energy efficiency and independence.

“Hartley Bay’s ongoing commitment to being Canada’s greenest and most innovative First Nations community makes them ideal partners for this innovative project. The new energy coordinators will be using Pulse™ software to help to reduce the community’s energy use by 5-25% by quickly identifying and fixing energy-wasting anomalies.” said Pulse Energy’s co-founder David Helliwell.

“These types of resources offered by Pulse Energy and BCIT are most welcomed.” said Jacques Morin, Haida Gwaii Energy Coordinator. “They provide my community with the tools needed to build upon local skills and knowledge, while helping us to become more resilient to market fluctuations.”

Both Pulse Energy and BCIT look forward to developing the program, as technology in energy management advances and the demand for experienced energy experts grows.

“BCIT is committed to bringing new programs that contribute to the economic, environmental, and social prosperity of communities throughout BC.” said BCIT President Don Wright. “This initiative builds on the success of the Sustainable Energy Management program at BCIT and educates a new group of students in locations where energy conservation is key.”

For more information, please go to:

www. PulseEnergy.com

www.BCIT.com

Media Contact:

Kelly Friday
British Columbia Institute of Technology
Kelly_Friday@bcit.ca
O: 604.432.8773
C: 604.836.6700

Ashley Kerr
Pulse Energy
Ashley.Kerr@pulseenergy.com
O: 778.331.0519
C: 604.323.3347

“David Helliwell has a long connection to green building, and a real commitment to forwarding our understanding of post-occupancy building performance, one of the most important directions in green building. I have known David for a number of years, and am impressed with his focus on action, and ability to get things done. He will bring tremendous strength to the CaGBC Board in terms of his expertise and his abilities as a strategic thinker. I know he will play an important role in helping the CaGBC to continue to grow and increase its sphere of influence.”
-Heather Tremain, CEO and co-founder of reSource Rethinking Building

“At this year’s Globe Conference I moderated a panel on Smart Cities. One of the panelists was a very smart guy named David Helliwell. I first met David a number of years ago when he was working with Stephen Owen. He has always struck me as one of the lucky people…. he has intelligence, combined with good looks and a good background. But while he has so much going for him, David is a surprisingly modest person with a kind and gentle manner.

During the preparations for our panel discussion, David, who is the co-founder and President of Pulse Energy, mentioned that he has been nominated as a candidate for the Board of Directors of the Canada Green Building Council. Given his extensive background in the environmental and energy fields, I thought he would be a very good choice for the Board. I am therefore sharing some information that he provided to me, in the hope that those of you who can vote, will cast a vote for him.”
-Michael Geller, Vancouver based architect, planner, real estate consultant and property developer at Michael Geller & Associates Ltd.

David Helliwell wants to work with the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) to increase the emphasis on post-occupancy building performance. As Pulse Energy’s co-founder, he has dedicated himself to building a company focused on making the world’s buildings perform more efficiently thanks to energy management software. For more about David’s experience and how it relates to working for the CaGBC, visit his full bio.

Voting will take place online for all CaGBC members until May 19th, 2010. The ballot will come from “Everyone Counts”. Please note that there is only one ballot/vote per member company. To learn more about the election and how you can vote, visit the CaGBC’s website for full voting procedures.

On-line Energy Management Software Helps Save More Energy

VANCOUVER, April 27, 2010 – Pulse Energy Inc. today announced the launch of its third generation on-line energy dashboard, now the most sophisticated occupant engagement dashboard on the market. The Pulse^TM Dashboard is one of Pulse Energy’s three tools to manage and report on energy and demand management in the world’s commercial and industrial buildings.

Key new features of the dashboard include:

Portfolios – See how multiple buildings in a portfolio stack up against each other using metrics like energy intensity, energy per occupant or total tons of GHG emitted.  Navigate between buildings using map based navigation.

Kiosk Display – Present the Dashboard on the web, on a lobby display or on a touch-screen kiosk.

Improved Graphics and User Interface – Based on three years of user feedback, the interface and graphics have been completely redesigned with a greater emphasis on the user experience.

Customization – Easily upload images of buildings and customize the text displayed throughout the dashboard.

This new functionality builds on the core features of the original dashboard:

Display Target Energy Use– Create a target for your building’s energy use and show how your actual performance measures up. Follow each week as you get closer to your goal and show occupants how they can help through energy conservation tips.

Educate Occupants on Energy Efficiency – Display complicated energy use in a way that anyone can understand. For instance, did you know that a building using 14,000 kWh in a day is the equivalent of lighting the whole Eiffel Tower for 16 hours?

Sustainable Feature Showcase – Highlight the sustainable features in a building using the sustainable features component.  Present contact information for your Green Team or provide links to relevant green documents.

“The Pulse^TM Dashboard is one of the three pillars of Pulse^TM energy management software, alongside the Facility Manager tool and the Reporting & Analysis tool.” said Pulse Energy co-founder David Helliwell. “We incorporated our clients’ suggestions and have anticipated their evolving energy management needs. This is an exciting time for the team at Pulse Energy and our customers across North America, and I’d like to recognize the importance of the numerous contributions that Pulse users have made to the evolution of the product.”

“Pulse’s new dashboard is exactly what we need for our 2010 Sustainable Design Initiative.” said Kathy Wardle, Associate Principal and Director of Research at Perkins+Will. “We’re using it to engage Perkins+Will employees all over North America and already see energy-and cost- savings as a result of implementing the monitoring system in five of our offices.”

Rish Ghatikar from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) adds, “in a related research plan on use of the Energy Information Systems (EIS) in existing commercial/office buildings, we will be using EIS in one of the LBNL buildings (Building 90) to conduct a study on demonstrating the EIS implementation and lessons learned, and evaluate the EIS capabilities for energy savings and comfort improvements.”

LBNL is using Pulse Energy’s full software product in Building 90 for their study on Energy Information Systems. To view the study’s public reports, visit: http://eis.lbl.gov/

About Pulse Energy

Pulse Energy has been a leader in energy management software as a service solution since its launch in 2006. Currently deployed all over North America, Pulse^TM energy management software is saving commercial and industrial clients anywhere from 5%-25% in energy consumption costs through monitoring, analyzing and reporting functions. Early this year, Pulse Energy won the Regional Award for New Technology from the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters (CME) and the National Research Council of Canada (NRC-IRAP), for demonstrating their unique and innovative excellence in the development and application of new technologies. Pulse^TM energy management software was recently employed for Earth Hour and the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games to monitor Olympic venues and measure the effectiveness of sustainable building design and construction features.

To view the new dashboard, visit http://www.pulseenergy.com/new-dashboard/ and for more information about Pulse^TM energy management software, visit www.PulseEnergy.com.

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Sales Contact

Rob Scott

Robert.Scott@PulseEnergy.com

778.331.0500

Media Contact

Ashley Kerr

Ashley.Kerr@PulseEnergy.com

778.331.0519