Cisco said to be working with Bloom Energy for green buildings

Cisco and Bloom Energy, a startup creating a lot of buzz in the green energy market, are reportedly working together to integrate energy generation sources into Cisco’s EnergyWise software platform. Bloom is said to be working on a new kind of fuel cell whereas EnergyWise is Cisco’s IP-based platform intended to help data center managers manage building automation systems.

Cisco rolled out EnergyWise in January. At that time, EnergyWise monitored and measured IT equipment. Last week, Cisco announced EnergyWise now supported automated building systems like air conditioners and lights — a project it calls Network Building Mediator. With this partnership, Building Mediator would monitor energy sources, such as solar panels and generators, reports GreenTech’s Green Light blog.

Bloom is seven years old and has raised more than $200 million in VC funding, yet in all that time, with all that money, it has remained quiet about its technology and when said technology will become commercially available. The conditions of its partnership with Cisco are not known, though Green Light speculates that Bloom’s solid oxide fuel cell products may be in a trial run in a building using Building Mediator. Ultimately, the Bloom partnership is just one of many that Cisco would create with energy source providers as it builds out support for Building Mediator.

“Smart buildings” is one of the areas (like all things video) that Cisco is pursuing in its 30-odd proclaimed “market adjacencies” — areas that use network technologies in some fashion. This program is in line with Cisco’s Smart Connected Buildings programs, the office equivalent of Cisco’s Smart Grid program, which aims to allow utilities to manage energy consumption in neighborhoods via an IP network.

_{Posted by Cisco Subnet editor, Julie Bort}

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