(Tendril will demonstrate how its cloud platform integrates the BMW ActiveE with the home area network to provide orchestrated and prioritized charging at DistribuTECH taking place 24-26 January in San Antonio, Texas.)

For utilities and energy service providers, Tendril Connect delivers insight into the location of EVs on the grid distribution network so that they can proactively manage hot spots of growth in energy consumption. Utilities also benefit from the ability to communicate with EV owners regarding planned Demand Response (DR) and Direct Load Control (LC) events. The platform also establishes EVs as another manageable load in addition to other components of the home, such as water heaters and smart appliances.

Tendril Connect and Tendril Energize were purpose-built to help utilities, consumers and third party partners adapt and manage the changes coming in the energy industry, including those necessary for the roll-out of electric vehicles. I’m confident our technology will provide the best possible experience to ensure users can easily make the best decisions related to monitoring, understanding and managing their EVs’ energy consumption and that utilities can optimize the grid.

—Adrian Tuck, CEO at Tendril

BMW’s smart energy home will include smart thermostats provided by Tendril, a solar panel installation, home appliances, residential lighting and other smart devices. All of these will be centrally managed by Tendril Connect and accessible via Tendril Energize. BMW and Tendril will integrate a battery charging station, to help manage the intermittent energy produced by the solar panel and to mitigate the home’s impact during periods of peak electricity demand.

Tendril Connect provides the open standards-based communications, extensibility and security necessary to support billions of networked devices. Built from the ground up to handle “big data”, it applies behavioral science expertise and analytics to generate the intelligence from connected devices needed to support the emerging marketplace of new services. It is licensed by 35 customers including top global energy service providers; manufacturers of smart applications and devices, including Whirlpool Corporation; energy leaders, including Siemens Energy; and, nearly all the leading smart meter communications vendors. Highlights of the Connect platform include:

• Software as a Service (SAAS) model run in a secure SAS 70 audited network operations center (NOC);
• Open APIs enabling extensibility and third-party application integration;
• Open standards-based approach supporting freedom of choice with interchangeable technology;
• Multi-operating system platform supports Windows XP, Linux (Red Hat) and Mac OS X;
• Mobile device client support for Java-enabled platforms;
• Horizontally scalable architecture providing high-availability infrastructure and reduced total cost of ownership;
• Event-driven architecture for real-time data capture, increased processing capacity and efficient throughput;
• Multi-tier security through standards-based authentication, authorization, and encryption; and
• High availability through automated failover via redundant or replicated service instances.

Tendril Energize is an application suite that leverages proven behavioral models, so that utilities and ecosystem product and service providers can persistently engage consumers with Energy Efficiency, DR (demand response), and LC (load control) programs to balance loads and optimize generation costs. The company has seen increased demand for its platform and applications, as utilities and energy ecosystem partners look to drive consumer engagement in home energy management.