Adura Technologies Adds Oakland's Kaiser Center to Facilities Cutting Energy Waste With Wireless Lighting Controls

SAN FRANCISCO, April 25, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Adura Technologies, a leading provider of wireless lighting controls and energy management systems, today announced growth in two key areas. Adura has added the 500,000 square foot Kaiser Center Garage, one of the largest privately-owned garages in Oakland, to the list of facilities under the control of the company's Wireless Lighting Control System. The company has also announced the completion of an $8.5 million Series B round of funding.

"Adura's Wireless Lighting Control System is now part of another one of the Bay Area's marquee buildings," said Mark Golan, CEO of Adura Technologies. "Our continued success with customers has been instrumental to our continued funding success."

The new funding round, which closed on February 10, came from investors including NGEN Partners, VantagePoint Capital Partners and Claremont Creek Ventures. The funding reflects confidence in the company's growth, perhaps best represented by a 273 percent jump in revenue in 2011 over 2010.

"The smart building controls market represents a huge investment opportunity," said Nat Goldhaber, Managing Director, Claremont Creek Ventures. "Adura's wireless control technology offers compelling solutions for the challenges control systems must meet to encourage widespread adoption. We're proud that this has proved the case with our Oakland neighbor, the landmark Kaiser Center."

One of Oakland, California's signature buildings, the Kaiser Center is a 28-story office tower served by an adjacent 5-story, 1,339 space parking garage. Building owner/manager, The Swig Company, had long been looking for a way to cut down on energy waste in the garage without compromising illumination or patron experience.

Kaiser Center General Manager, Andrea Kirkpatrick, believes that The Swig Company has demonstrated a real commitment to environmental stewardship while simultaneously controlling the building's energy costs. "Last year we reduced the building's overall carbon footprint, earning LEED Gold status in the process. Now, with the help of the Oakland Shines program and Adura's Wireless Lighting Control System we have taken a further step toward establishing Kaiser Center as one of the most energy efficient commercial office buildings in Northern California."   

With the addition of Kaiser Center, Adura now has 67 customers and 96 deployments with more than 6.5 million square feet under the control of the company's Wireless Lighting Control System. Twenty five installations totaling more than two million square feet were deployed in Q1 2012.

Installation of the system was finalized on February 1, 2012 and is expected to save between 40 to 70 percent of the facility's lighting energy use. Until the installation of the Adura system, the garage's lighting had been completely uncontrolled as the lights were constantly on.

Lighting control strategies for the garage include:

• Task Tuning: Good lighting design provides the appropriate light levels for the occupants' requirements. The Adura Lighting Control System can trim reserve capacity to save energy and money. At the Kaiser Center Garage lights are task tuned to 70 percent when the space is occupied, and reduced to 20 percent when unoccupied or there is adequate daylight.
• Daylight harvesting: Adura's system uses photocells that communicate through the wireless mesh network, controlling lights in the garage in response to changing light levels and raising or dimming the lights as needed.
• Occupancy Detection:  The Adura system responds to the real-time use of the garages. Strategically placed occupancy sensors insure that not only occupied areas are lit (as is the case with ordinary motion sensors), but areas ahead of pedestrian or vehicle traffic are illuminated as well. This predictive response is enabled by Adura's intelligent networked solution.

For more information about Adura Technologies' Wireless Lighting Control System, visit: http://www.aduratech.com

About Adura Technologies

Adura® Technologies is a clean energy technology company, applying low-power wireless mesh networking to the lighting controls and energy management markets. The company designs, manufactures and commissions energy management solutions for its customers. Adura's mission is to provide cost-effective solutions for the retrofit of commercial buildings so that building owners, tenants and facility managers can implement energy efficiency and load curtailment strategies that help reduce their operating costs and carbon footprint. Adura is backed by Claremont Creek Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm; VantagePoint Capital Partners, a leading global clean tech investor, and NGEN Partners, a pioneering investor in the clean tech sector. For more information, please visit http://www.aduratech.com.

SOURCE Adura Technologies