IBM and Johnson Controls have announced plans to join forces to make buildings smarter, reducing energy and water use.

The two companies, who originally got together to develop energy efficient data centres, will rollout a ‘Smart Building Solution’ to improve the efficiency of energy and water usage in any building around the world.

The product will combine key software tools from each company to provide a way of integrating building systems, business systems and smart grid technologies, as well as energy management and space optimisation. Measuring, managing and forecasting energy costs, consumption, the effects of energy efficiency projects, fleet emissions, and waste will also be built into the system.

The companies say that the tools they are bringing together in the system have a track record of driving energy savings of 10-20% across an organisation.

“With our Smart Building Solution, energy and asset management is enhanced in new ways that optimize environmental performance and operational efficiencies across a single building or an entire portfolio of buildings,” says Clay Nesler of Johnson Controls.

For further information:
www.ibm.com/smarterplanet
www.ibm.com/ibm/servicemanagement/index.html
www.johnsoncontrols.com/publish/us/en.html

Related stories:
US launches multi-agency initiative to boost building efficiency (15-Feb)
Energy efficiency could reduce US energy use 20% by 2020 (15-Dec 2009)
Energy efficiency could yield energy savings worth $1.2 trillion, says McKinsey (30-Jul 2009)
IBM taps into water management (16-Mar 2009)