WegoWise Partners with Los Angeles Better Buildings Challenge

BOSTON, April 24, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- WegoWise, a leading building intelligence provider, today announced that it has partnered with the Los Angeles Better Buildings Challenge (LABBC) to help reduce building energy use across 30 million square feet of Los Angeles buildings. LABBC is one of the largest BBC programs in the nation and the first to offer the WegoWise platform to all participants free of charge, enabling building owners and managers to easily track utility data and accelerate progress towards the program goal of reducing energy use 20% by 2020.

"The LABBC is leading the nation by helping participating buildings understand their energy use so they can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and slash costs," said Dave Hodgins, Executive Director of the LABBC. "We've seen that a convenient data acquisition and tracking tool is essential for building owners and managers to understand their energy use and participate in the Challenge. WegoWise plays an important role by helping LABBC participants easily track, benchmark and report their energy data."

Municipal, commercial and multifamily buildings participating in the LABBC program can now use WegoWise's platform to track and report energy consumption. Property owners and managers can also use WegoWise to identify the least efficient buildings for retrofits to maximize savings and verify that upgrades deliver energy savings as anticipated. More than 60 projects representing nearly $20M in investment are already underway as part of the LABBC, and these projects can now use WegoWise's platform to track building performance and verify cost savings. LABBC participants using WegoWise will join more than 12,000 buildings representing 190,600 total units tracking energy usage in WegoWise.

"LABBC participants are required to track and report their energy usage, but many don't have the time or resources to do so," said Andrew Chen, WegoWise CEO. "WegoWise helps building owners meet LABBC reporting requirements in as little as five minutes. By automatically tracking utility use across large building portfolios, participants can also quickly identify their least efficient buildings where retrofits can deliver major energy reductions and help the LABBC program achieve its targets faster."

The WegoWise platform automatically retrieves utility bill data in a simple interface much like Mint.com, seamlessly aggregating energy data and savings without extensive office work or cumbersome spreadsheets. After users provide key building characteristics, WegoWise retrieves utility data for buildings and portfolios automatically – no manual inputting required. WegoWise's tracking and reporting functions can also help buildings comply with new energy disclosure laws like California's A.B. 1103, enabling easy upload to compliance programs.

"The lowest-cost source of energy is that which is saved through efficiency," said Pavel Molchanov, energy analyst at Raymond James & Associates. "Above and beyond the regulatory requirements, there is a clear economic incentive for building owners and other enterprises to be more aware of their energy consumption patterns so they can create effective ways to achieve savings. In this context, tools such as WegoWise can play an important role."

As part of the LABBC, the City of Los Angeles has set a goal of achieving 20 percent energy savings across 30 million square feet of existing buildings by 2020. Reaching this goal will significantly reduce participants' operating costs, increase available capital and enhance tenant comfort and productivity while creating more than 7,000 high-quality local jobs and averting CO₂ emissions equivalent to removing over 18,000 cars from L.A.'s roads.

About WegoWise
WegoWise provides industry-leading web-based utility intelligence for the real estate industry. Bridging big data and energy efficiency, WegoWise distills large aggregations of energy and water data into useful, actionable information for building owners, managers, energy auditors and building efficiency programs, enabling them to automatically track, understand and benchmark building performance, and make better efficiency investment decisions. WegoWise's platform regularly identifies impressive opportunities for cost savings, as inefficient buildings typically pay four times the utility costs of efficient buildings. Learn more at wegowise.com.

SOURCE WegoWise