LonMark International and GreenLink Alliance form new partnership

January 27, 2009 – San Jose, CA – LONMARK International (LMI), a non-profit member trade association recognized as the industry authority for certification, education and promotion of interoperability standards for the benefit of manufacturers, integrators and end users, is pleased to announce its newly established, collaborative agreement with GreenLink Alliance. GreenLink Alliance is a rapidly growing, non-profit trade association focused on promoting products and services that help to conserve energy in the built environment.

According to the US Department of Energy, in 2006, the buildings sector was responsible for nearly 40% of the primary energy consumed in the United States. Buildings are also responsible for 40% of the carbon dioxide emissions in the United States. These startling figures make it evident that optimizing energy performance in new, and existing, buildings will be important to reducing America’s demand for energy.

The partnership provides a platform for bringing together LONMARK’s recognized and industry leading work in the field of open and interoperable standards with GreenLink’s mission to influence policymakers to expand tax incentives for owners of existing buildings that want to improve energy efficiency using intelligent control technology. GreenLink believes that building automation systems that leverage the capabilities of the power line offer a cost effective and environmentally sound solution to retrofit legacy buildings to increase energy efficiency.

LONMARK International, already a strong advocate for education, welcomes the opportunity for both organizations to jointly offer further education to building owners, facility managers, and the general public about the advantages of utilizing residential and commercial control technology.

“LONMARK is a reputable and well established organization and GreenLink is honored to be a strategic partner with them,” says Cory Vanderpool, Executive Director of GreenLink Alliance. “GreenLink recognizes that interoperability and open standards are critical to further market adoption of residential and commercial building control technology.”

“LONMARK is committed to partnering with other organizations dedicated to educating our members to implement practical, cost-effective intelligent control systems,” says Ron Bernstein, Executive Director of LONMARK International. “This alliance between LONMARK and GreenLink will foster ongoing efforts to establish incentives and legislation to encourage more energy efficient system designs. LONMARK's members will benefit through expanding opportunities via governmental incentives to utilize open, interoperable solutions.”

LONMARK International honors achievements and talents

January 28, 2009 – Chicago, IL – LONMARK International (LMI), a non-profit member trade association recognized as the industry authority for certification, education and promotion of interoperability standards for the benefit of manufacturers, integrators and end users, is pleased to announce the winners of its Best of the Year Awards on January 27 at AHR 2009 in Chicago.

The Awards Ceremony took place as part of the LONMARK General Meeting and attracted numerous industry professionals both from the LONMARK member base and from the industry at large, all of whom celebrated the winners for their innovative products, intelligent solutions, and forward-thinking initiatives.

The six award categories - Best Multi-Vendor Project, LONMARK Certified Device, Infrastructure Product, Software, Industry Initiative, and Visionary - represent an exceptional group of technology developers, solutions providers, and market leaders who are dedicated to advancing the market of intelligent and sustainable controls solutions in all areas of application.

The annual awards program received an impressive amount of nominations in the six different categories from companies around the world. The winner for each category was selected using a strict set of criteria defined for each award category, a serious and weighty responsibility, which this year fell on the shoulders of the newly founded LONMARK International Awards Committee.

“This year we once again had an extremely high quality of the nominations. With so many noteworthy nominations it is difficult to single out just one winner in each category,” added Bernstein.

The Best Multi-Vendor Project award is attributed to an open solution consisting of products from many manufacturers, with benefits such as open front-end software, which highly benefits the end-user. This year’s award went to Enerlon, a Southern California based contractor specializing in open LONWORKS control networks leveraging LONMARK interoperability standards.

The Self Realization Fellowship Church (SRF) is a worldwide spiritual organization based in Los Angeles. The winning project was their newly acquired 1960’s, 17 acre existing church property, which had fallen into disrepair. Enerlon provided the ‘smarts & parts’ for the project which included the design, supply, and support of the control system installation, as well as the network infrastructure, control devices, I/O components, network design/tools, a web-based user interface, and enterprise connectivity which included alarm reporting, data logging, scheduling, and energy management.

The LONMARK Certified Device of the Year award was awarded to Continental Control Systems for the WattNode Logger. The WattNode Logger provides real-time monitoring of electric power and metering of electric energy. It can be used as part of a LONWORKS network or as a stand-alone meter and monitor with logging. The WattNode Logger is a multi-function, networked AC energy meter with eternal logging, and can be used in single or three-phase applications. The device is currently being used extensively for US Army military bases for energy metering.

LONMARK presented Thermokon with the Infrastructure Product of the Year award in honor of its Easysens SRC65-FTT Receiver, a radio receiver using EnOcean’s core technology for wireless and batteryless sensors and and switches combined with a LONWORKS interface. The receiver directly converts all radio telegrams received to LONWORKS standard network variables (SNVT), and offers predefined objects, such as various sensors and switches, with the corresponding output variables (SNVT) for communication in a LONWORKS system. The wireless, batteryless solution offers multiple benefits for building automation ranging from cost reduction to flexibility and adaptability.

The award for Software Solution of the Year went to Streetlight.Vision for the ‘Streetlight.Vision Monitoring Suite’, a solution which aims at providing cities and streetlight maintenance companies with energy and maintenance savings as well as lighting service quality and security enhancements. The software is composed of ‘Streetlight.Vision Design, a 100% web software, ‘Streetlight.Vision M2M Data Collect’, a fully automatic middleware, and ‘Streetlight.Vision Web Portal’, which provides the end-user with web applications to monitor the Streetlight Network anywhere at any time.

In the category of Industry Initiative of the Year, the winner was the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) for the ‘National Load Management through Centralized Remote Control’. The program aims at implementing demand-side management (DSM) strategies in different types of buildings through centralized remote control to manage national peak load and reduce annual energy consumption. It involved design, development, installation, and testing of a pilot system for DSM through centralized remote control, and was funded by the Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW) with participation of other government and private entities.

Finally, in acknowledgement of Barry Haaser’s industry stewardship, LONMARK International presented him the Visionary award. Barry Haaser has demonstrated the qualities of a true industry visionary. His many years of support of LONMARK include being a sponsor, the organization’s Executive Director, and lately as a member of the Board of Directors, where he held the office of Marketing Committee Chairman. Over the years, he has helped the association adapt and transform into a thriving community around the world. Mr. Haaser defined a new, independent vision of LONMARK, uniting the various users groups into one global organization. His ongoing efforts to support the growth and opportunities of LONMARK, and the market in general include building a market for home automation, quick serve restaurants, streetlighting, digital metering, and many others.

LONMARK International is proud to celebrate the on-going efforts of the award recipients and will continue to offer educational programs, professional testing, and will together with LONMARK Members and Affiliates continue to meet the growing market demand for energy efficient intelligent control solutions in all sectors of the market.