Commercial Buildings
September 25, 2024—As companies increasingly commit to ambitious clean energy and decarbonization goals, many face a daunting challenge: where to begin. Identifying the most impactful steps to reduce carbon emissions, especially in the building sector, is a complex and overwhelming task. This is where simuwatt steps in.
“One of the first steps in tackling carbonization is determining where to begin and how to prioritize,” said Bryan Conklin, CEO and president of simuwatt.
“We’re focused on helping building owners and managers; utilities; and energy and sustainability firms identify projects and equip them with the tools to get it done,” said Matt Brown, simuwatt co-founder and chief product officer.
Simuwatt’s subscription-based software platform, buildee, rapidly identifies and prioritizes high-impact energy savings, decarbonization, and water savings opportunities within a specific building or across a portfolio of buildings. Simuwatt often supports commercial and multi-family buildings, as well as light industrial structures; however, the software has applicability to other building types too.
“Buildee pinpoints capital projects that can reduce energy expenses, water expenses, or greenhouse gas emissions,” said Conklin. “Essentially, we streamline the collection of utility and device-level data, using no hardware or sensors, and use that to identify and prioritize the most effective opportunities that will make the biggest impact. Those opportunities are then laid out in a multi-year capital plan tied to client or compliance goals and targets.”
Simuwatt goes beyond offering recommendations to building owners or property managers; it also collaborates directly with utilities to enhance energy savings programs.
“We partner with utilities to equip their staff to educate consumers on energy efficiency opportunities along with available rebates,” Brown said. “Our approach improves customer engagement and provides a roadmap for utilizing rebates, maximizing the opportunities our software identifies.”
Simuwatt was already working with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) before the Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN2) program even launched in 2014. Building on that foundation, the company joined IN2’s third cohort just a few years later.
“IN2 truly opened up new doors for us,” Conklin said. “It sparked discussions with partners like Wells Fargo and the association with NREL gave our product a credibility boost that supports our entry into the customers and segments we serve that are focused on energy efficiency and decarbonization.”
IN2 reached its 10-year anniversary in 2024 and simuwatt is proud to be part of that history.
“The partnership was incredibly helpful because we were able to contextualize this ideation to market and actually verify it,” Brown said. “It led to some beta testing on Wells Fargo sites—having that real customer use case was very valuable.”
Since it went through the IN2 program, simuwatt has seen substantial growth. According to Conklin, the company’s prospect pipeline in the past two years has expanded sixfold and its customer base has grown four times over.
“The clock’s ticking for the climate issue and there are significant savings to be had by building owners,” Conklin said. “We are focused on how we continue to expand the base of customers we serve and deliver an exponential growth path to investors. We truly have an incredible product and are eager to meet the increasing need in the marketplace.”
