At EnergyDeck we’re busy building features that enable users to get to grips with how effective their energy efficiency audits really are. The latest piece of this puzzle was launched last week - users now have the capability to add projects to audit records, which in turn drops them automatically into your projects portfolio.

At EnergyDeck we believe that for our users to successfully run their buildings better the essential first step is having confidence in their data. So to support this confidence, enabling better analysis and decision making, we’ve recently launched a brand new feature: Data Quality.

EnergyDeck arrived at IDEALondon late October 2014, and since then it’s been a frenzy of activity focused on growing the team and business, taking advantage of the opportunities at IDEALondon, and working with Cisco to integrate with their ecosystem of services.

How difficult can it be to put four puzzle pieces together? With a regular puzzle, a two year old could do it. In the building energy world, even the most skilful building and energy managers regularly fail at the task. As a result most buildings are operated well below their efficiency optimum. And it’s not for a lack of experience. Equipment is also not the issue – we have the technology in place today to design, build and operate highly efficient buildings, even without employing rocket science or black magic. So what then, is the issue? Simply speaking, it’s one of stakeholder engagement. But not the type of ‘stakeholder engagement’ that is typically referred to when it comes to behaviour change projects, and often limited to tenants. The stakeholders here span a much wider range. In an ideal scenario, the entire “building management stack” from landlords to building managers, FMs, contractors, consultants, energy providers and tenants would be engaged and aligned with one objective in mind: run the building as efficiently as possible, and generate benefits for everyone involved. How can this be done, you ask? Just follow these three easy steps: Understand the core drivers and motivations of each stakeholder group, and how they can benefit from efficiently operated buildings Identify the data and information that is required to asses the operating performance of the building and manage it, including the data owners, data type and quality Bring it all together in a single platform that represents the ‘single version of the truth’, is hardware agnostic, enables easy sharing across stakeholders and, above all, delivers meaningful insights that ultimately drive building efficiency. The good news is: the technology to do this exists today, the benefits are there for everyone and the business case works out. Let’s solve the puzzle together, shall we!

We’ve previously looked at how we will be supporting our users’ access to high quality data by simplifying data acquisition through out of the box integration with hardware and other data providers. Since then, we’ve been hard at work extending this capability and have now over a dozen data sources available, with many more already in the pipeline.

EnergyDeck is excited to announce that we’ve moved offices and are now located at the IDEALondon innovation centre.

RBS has selected EnergyDeck as a finalist in the Innovation Gateway; a major international search for new ways of reducing energy, water and waste.Launched in March this year, the RBS Innovation Gateway attracted more than 140 submissions in just 40 days, from brand new concepts through to market-ready products and services.The ideas came from innovators and small businesses (SMEs) around Britain and the world, from Perth in Scotland to Perth in Western Australia. The best ideas will be tested on the RBS estate of 2,500 buildings and branches in the UK.

We are delighted to announce that SPIMA recently signed a reseller agreement with EnergyDeck to provide its customers with an affordable and scalable energy management solution. SPIMA was formed in 1990 to serve the needs of the materials handling sector in Cyprus, especially in the areas of warehouse storage systems. The company's activities include a full range of supplies and services for the logistics industry. The latest announcement will see Spima entering the energy market through innovative products, as well as the offering of Energy Management through EnergyDeck. Read more about SPIMA.

If you read the technology press, you will have seen a flurry of articles about the Heartbleed Bug this week. This bug is a serious vulnerability in OpenSSL, a software library used by a large number of web sites to deliver their services over encrypted connections, including EnergyDeck. The security advisory about this vulnerability was first sent out on Monday night and we received it on Tuesday morning. We immediately took steps to verify whether the EnergyDeck site was impacted, discovered that it was and patched the system. This was done through an emergency fix by midday Tuesday. Revising our security configuration and procedures is a normal process at EnergyDeck and we do it regularly to ensure that every issue is dealt with as quickly as possible. In this particular case, we are indebted to the open source community and in particular the Debian project for releasing a patch very quickly after the initial vulnerability was disclosed.

Considerate Hoteliers, the UK’s oldest established and only network for responsible hoteliers; and EnergyDeck, an award-winning, crowd-based energy analytics platform, sign a strategic partnership to enable hoteliers around the world to save energy and resources.

If you are an EnergyDeck customer, you will have recently received an email to tell you that we have migrated your account to a new plan. This is because we have simplified our account structure to align better with our customers’ needs, which in turn will allow us to develop more specific account functionality to provide everyone a better EnergyDeck experience. So what have we done and what’s in it for you?

If you work in technology, you probably know about the CeBIT trade show that takes place in Hanover every year. After all, it's the largest technology trade show in the world and has been going since 1986. This year, the UK is the partner country for CeBIT so you should see a lot of British companies in attendance, including a number of exciting start-ups, one of which is EnergyDeck.

The Internet was in a bit of a frenzy last night as Google announced that they acquired Nest for a cool $3.2 billion. Everybody from technology web sites like TechCrunch or The Register to general media like the BBC and The Guardian had something to say about it and analysis to offer. The original press release doesn’t say much so everything beyond this is speculation.At EnergyDeck, we have a team composed of former employees of Google and Opower among others, working on an innovative web-based solution for energy management in buildings. So it goes without saying that we’re rather excited about the news. However, I’d like to take a step back and look at the acquisition and potential implications for users from a pure data and technology standpoint.

Merry Christmas. It's been an amazing 2013 for EnergyDeck. Our team has been working tirelessly to deliver the real estate industry's leading engagement platform, collecting awards and signing some major customers. We're proud to announce our collaboration with East Midlands Housing, one of the largest social housing providers in the Midlands, bringing our total tally of clients to over 20.

EnergyDeck recently launched a YouTube channel so we can begin creating videos to help spread the word about EnergyDeck, show how it can be best used, and introduce the team behind it. The first video posted is already up, and does just this - providing a brief overview of EnergyDeck as a whole and the team (without Markus, unfortunately, who was on holiday at the time). It was created as part of our semi-final entry for the Cisco BIG Awards competition, and so is a great general introduction to the platform (plus we were required to stick to a time limit, so it’s not too long…) New videos are already planned and on the way, please do subscribe so you can keep up to date with upcoming developments.