EFFICIENCY SOFTWARE, THE LOW FRUIT

'Clean-tech' start-ups are pushing the green button; Hara, which launches today, is the latest IT effort to help firms and the planet through software to manage water and energy use.
Dan Fost, June 1, 2009 (LA Times)

"Amit Chatterjee worked for three Silicon Valley start-ups and software company SAP...[H]e became convinced that there was a way to use software…to help companies track and manage their use of energy, water and other resources,,,[and got a $6-million investment from] the valley's most prominent venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers…[for] his latest start-up, Hara, which…helps [companies] plan ways to mitigate their environmental effects.

"Hara's arrival, after operating quietly for the last year and a half, shows how the tech wizards behind many Internet companies are now hard at work building digital solutions to save water, money, energy and maybe even the planet. Kleiner Perkins managing partner Ted Schlein, a Hara board member, calls it 'the greening of IT,' saying that large corporations are ready to use information technology to make their businesses more eco-friendly because it's the right thing to do and it can save them money."

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"Venture capitalists, big companies including Cisco Systems Inc. and General Electric Co. and private equity firms have been pumping money into a variety of green IT initiatives…A major push includes an effort to make the nation's power grid "smarter" by using sensors and networking technology so companies can track their electricity use.

"These initiatives look at the demand side -- figuring out how people are using energy -- rather than the supply side, such as solar power, to replace the type of energy being generated…"

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"For the last few years, venture capitalists have poured money into so-called clean-tech companies, which use technology to solve environmental problems, at a much faster rate than traditional technology. The field appears particularly poised for growth as the Obama administration begins to pump stimulus dollars into green energy initiatives, and as governments around the world consider making companies pay for the amount of carbon they generate…

"…[Investment] has dropped in the last two quarters as the turmoil in the financial markets has made investors reluctant to sink large sums into [New Energy] projects that could take years to pay off…But software firms can be started for far less…Solar panels could be a hard sell if the return on investment is still years away, but a software system that helps a company become more energy efficient may pay for itself a lot sooner…"