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Schneider Electric to deliver energy management capability with Cisco

Schneider Electric has announced that it has teamed up with Cisco to provide a comprehensive energy management solution that monitors and manages energy consumption across all building domains. With this combined solution, building owners and managers, architects, contractors and IT managers will now be able to optimise energy efficiencies and business operations to save energy.

Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure active energy management architecture portfolio offers a single point of access that connects five domains of business expertise – power, data centres, process and machines, building control, and physical security – all within an open and flexible technology framework. The EcoStruxure architecture integrates with Cisco EnergyWise embedded on the Cisco network infrastructure to provide a holistic building management solution, managing all energy-consuming building assets, such as HVAC, lighting, security and, for the first time, reduce energy waste generated from IT/IP assets, including PCs, phones, catalyst switches, Power-over- Ethernet (PoE) endpoint devices and other IT devices.

With rising energy costs in buildings accounting for 42% of energy usage worldwide, there is an impetus to find ways of reducing energy consumption with these IP/IT devices within buildings and across the network.

“Looking for innovative ways to increase energy efficiency and enable business performance within buildings is what Schneider Electric does every day with thousands of customers worldwide,” says Chris Curtis, president and CEO, Buildings Business, Schneider Electric. “Combining Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure architecture and Cisco EnergyWise provides organisations with the capability to go one step further and manage the energy consumption of IT/IP devices and PCs in the building management system domain for the first time. We are very excited about this opportunity and what our joint innovation will mean for reducing energy consumption in buildings across the globe.”

In addition, the new combined solution enables organisations to:

* Monitor, report and manage energy usage across the entire corporate network or real estate infrastructure.

* Create a more energy-efficient architecture for the IP/IT domain outside of the data centre.

* Better control where and how energy is being used to more intelligently and efficiently respond to smart grid signals.

* Realise a new source of energy savings to fulfil corporate sustainability requirements, free up capital resources and quickly improve an organisation’s overall bottom line.

Schneider Electric and Cisco have worked together for more than a decade and provide organisations with the tools to help reduce energy consumption up to 30% by taking advantage of the network as a platform for energy management. This relationship has extended from collaborations of unified communications in the data centre and network closets to video surveillance and IP security. This expanded relationship further extends Schneider Electric's established global leadership in energy management with Cisco's industry leading IT energy management solution delivered via its Catalyst switch platforms to provide sustainable energy reduction, workforce efficiencies and overall improved business performance.

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