Richards-Zeta Wins Buildy Green Initiative Award

Campus-wide technology platform central to long-term green corporate strategy

Santa Barbara, CA – July 8, 2008

This month at the BuilConn conference in Santa Clara, California, Richards-Zeta was awarded the Best Green Initiative award for its Intelligent Buildings Systems (IBS) platform deployed across many of Google’s Northern California corporate offices. Richards-Zeta’s (RZ’s) IBS is a strategic technology platform that enables businesses to reach critical energy and facility data and manage their green building programs on an ongoing basis.

Intelligent Building System -Foundation technology for Green and Sustainable Buildings

Richards-Zeta’s IBS platform is a key element in a company’s commitment to a clean and green energy future. From renewable energy, higher-efficiency lighting, and environmental management systems, companies with an aggressive commitment to reducing its carbon footprint are struggling with the growing complexity arising from disparate green technologies and facility systems. The challenge is further impacted by the requirements for ongoing reporting and continued energy use reductions.

Richards-Zeta’s IBS helps organizations seamlessly integrate their physical equipment layer and bring the systems into the IT network without the need for costly enterprise applications. As a web 2.0 technology Richards-Zeta’s platform allows full read/write and real-time capabilities to allow facility and energy managers as well as sustainability leaders the ability to proactively react to systems that prior were out of reach.

An Intelligent Building System is scalable, expandable and adaptable to meet the demands of a company’s green building strategy. IBS uses range from simple energy data monitoring to complicated Utility offered automated demand response and control systems. Companies are able to deploy the IBS according to their sustainability policy and make financial decisions to drive down energy costs.

Google’s Leadership Role in Sustainability and Green Energy

After taking concrete steps to reduce its carbon footprint and accelerate improvements with green technology, Google’s facilities team needed a way to access all facility, building and equipment data in order to mine for further efficiencies and greater energy reductions. Google enlisted Richards-Zeta IBS platform.

RZ’s IBS consists of RZ’s Mediator and OMEGA software. The Mediator is an intelligent middleware platform (combined hardware and software) for advanced system integration. The Mediator physically links Google’s building control systems, onsite photovoltaic plant, energy meters, electrical switchgear, UPS systems and lighting controls into the vast IP network. RZ’s OMEGA software, which is embedded on the Mediator hardware, provides a web-based graphical user interface (GUI). It is pre-configured with tools such as EventManager, SecurityManager, TrendManager and GraphTool. OMEGA provides Google with a personalized dashboard view of the entire campus including 3D renderings, events, real time energy use and more. The IBS solution allows Google the choice to participate in PGE’s Automated Demand Response (ADR) program helping to alleviate pressure on the grid during peak demand periods.

The IBS is expandable and adaptable to reflect Google’s growth. For example, once Google completed its acquisition of YouTube, Google’s facilities team extended its IBS platform to include the YouTube campus - despite having a completely different building control system in place. Overall, the significance of the IBS to Google’s green strategy includes increased energy efficiency, reduced management complexity, better energy reporting and participation in the Utility’s demand response program.

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