There is huge opportunity for widescale adoption of technology-driven energy efficiency interventions, says Gaurav Burman, VP & APAC President, India, 75F.
In current times, a lot of companies are moving towards the goal of enhancing energy efficiency along with optimizing comfort. 75F is one of them. Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Minneapolis-USA, 75F is a fast-growing Building Intelligence Solutions provider that leverages the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing to predict monitor, and proactively manage various elements in a building including its temperature, lighting, air quality, and its energy management needs. In the last five years alone, the company has notched up several customers including popular names like Border Foods, Magnet 360, Rockler, and Yoga Fit in the US, and has created hundreds of energy-efficient and intelligent buildings in the process. In August 2016, 75F launched its operations in India and has been growing steadily, acquiring several customers ever since. The Sunday Guardian spoke to Gaurav Burman, VP & APAC President, India, 75F, on several topics. Excerpts:
Q: How 75F is contributing towards sustainable development?
A: 75F’s solutions contribute to customers’ social, environmental, and economic success by increasing employee productivity, reducing energy use and other operational expenses, increasing property value, and increasing profits. The value offered to customers across the value chain can be best summed up as improved OE2. From a sustainability impact standpoint, what our solutions achieve is listed below:
Up to 50% savings on energy: HVAC and Lighting account for 65% of the total energy consumption in commercial buildings and traditional systems can guzzle a lot of energy as they are reactive and depend on dampers. 75F’s solution uses continuous commissioning with the help of sensor data and is predictive and proactive. With the help of IoT and Cloud Computing, 75F’s solutions can save up to 50% of the energy used for HVAC and Lighting leading to significant savings on utility bills. Not only this, but our smart sensors also consider other factors like indoor air quality and smart lighting that improves occupant comfort and indirectly leads to an improvement in employee productivity, thus improving the company’s triple bottom line.
Sustainability Impact: 75F’s solution deployed across just 16 facilities in 2019 resulted in 4,672,461 kWh of energy saved and 2,191,418 tons of CO2 emissions avoided. It also resulted in 7.5% improvement in Occupant Comfort and an ROI ranging from as low as 1.5-4 years.
Q: What is the mantra of 75F’s success as a fast-growing Building Intelligence Solution Provider?
A: We aim to be the best i-BMS solution in the market that provides the highest energy savings, automation, comfort, indoor air quality, and level of automation while offering the most integrations. As a company, we value feedback from our customers and focus on being an agile start-up that comes up with improved or new solutions based on the changing needs of Facility Managers and the occupants of buildings.
Q: The Union Budget which was presented on 1 February has laid a major focus on capturing the emerging energy transition trends. What do you have to say about this?
A: While the government continues to focus on promoting renewable sources of energy on the supply side, we still have tremendous untapped opportunity for widescale adoption of technology-driven energy efficiency interventions, which can play an important role in managing the demand side. Reduction of energy consumption can directly contribute to the fiscal deficit targets in a meaningful way, while at the same time contributing to the long-term social and environmental goals. We would like to see some announcements like incentives, promotions, and awareness programs for the Corporate sector promoting direct adoption of energy efficiency investments, which may help unlock the Nation’s energy efficiency potentials. We are also expecting to see the further simplification of the GST compliance requirements, especially for small and medium-sized businesses. Freeing up the entrepreneur’s bandwidth will help the small business and traders put in more fire behind the growth engine. Multiple GST rates and a non-uniform credit scheme have a risk of increasing fear of non-compliance within the small traders and business segment as they are continuing to become more aware of the nuances associated with what is relatively still a newer tax regime. We are expecting to hear some significant incremental steps directed towards ease of compliance for the SME segment.
Q: What steps can be taken in achieving Sustainable Development Goals?
A: As the solution is powered by IoT and cloud computing, innovation is a continuous process. We started with a focus on the HVAC sector alone, but since then, our solutions have covered other areas like indoor air quality management and intelligent lighting. The possibilities for this technology are immense and IoT and cloud computing could completely revolutionize the smart buildings of the future.
Q: How has your business model been affected by the pandemic?
A: The pandemic has forced offices worldwide to remain shut and as a Building Management Solution, we experienced a few months of slow growth. But we came up with innovative solutions like the 75F Epidemic Mode to make offices secure when they open up post-pandemic which implements the latest guidelines from scientific and government bodies like the CDC, ISHRAE, and ASHRAE, etc. Due to this, 75F has in fact seen 2x growth since the last quarter of 2020!
Q: What are 75F’s post-Covid future plans?
A: Post-Covid, 75F plans on adding new capabilities and being able to reach more geographies. Our goals could be listed as below:
Geographical Expansion: Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America, NAM; Industry Verticals: Retail, IT/IteS, Healthcare, Hospitality, BFSI, Education, Government; Applications: HVAC and Lighting Energy Efficiency and Comfort in CRE, Refrigeration, and Server Room Monitoring, IAQM; Recognition: Top 5 as per Frost Radar.