Under the parental guidance of Schneider Electric, APC is shifting its emphasis from being a successful supplier of power management equipment to becoming part of an end to end energy management company.

At a product level APC is synomynous with power back up products and technologies, claims a lead in hot aisle/cold aisle containment and has a global footprint. Namechecked competitors are Emerson and Eaton Power.

Though an engineering company it is now shifting up a gear into taking a lead in the sphere of strategic energy management. In its own words: “From power and control to energy management.”

What this means is that APC and Schneider Electric, or APC by Schneider Electric, to give the proper title are undergoing a transformation.

Schneider Electric is: “a global company consisting of 120 brands, 800,000 skus across 600 legal entities. This is making accountants and lawyers happy – but customers don’t need it,” it says.

APC started life in the US

Strategic approach:

What do APC and Schneider Electric mean by strategy?

It does not appear radically different from APC’s product positioning. But what has changed is the breadth of its engagement. It is no longer just about providing the components for efficient data center operation. It is now about touching all aspects of efficient data center design, build and operation.

In the data center construction space APC believes that efficiency is in standardisation.

“Instead of every building being a uniqiue expression of an art what is needed is a standard method of specifying building requirements – In the data center, there is considerable confusion, I don’t know one customer who knows how to write a good specification for an efficient building,” said Neil Rasmussen, senior VP for innovation, Schneider Electric.  

On standardisation, the company says: “Instead of the existing craft method of design, what is needed is standardized, reference designs that can be:

• Validated Tested Documented Optimized Improved over time
• Designs that integrate multiple building subsystems
• A simple and standardized method of specifying building requirements
• A simple method for choosing the best systems design given the specification (as opposed to component-level specification)
• Designs that are cross-vendor and based on open systems
• Designs where quality and performance are built-in, and not achieved through commissioning in the field

Does this mean that APC and Schneider is abandoning its engineering past in favour of a service led approach?

Not a bit of it. APC believes in instrumentation. The future, as it sees it, involves continuous, real time commissioning. The firm cites Google as an example of a company that constantly tweaks its data centers making incremental steps that saw efficiency improve by 15% over two years.

Data centers (and buildings in general) will be built around software that control and optimize all operations: “Like the increase of electronics, software, and electrical actuators in cars, so shall it be for buildings,” its says.“25% of the value in a car is in software and wires. We believe this is what will happen in buildings.”

This software will run:

• Smart controls for economizer and load time-shifting HVAC
• Automation to perform “real-time commissioning”
• Instrumentation as a superior and lower cost alternative to energy audits for new buildings and some retrofits
• Energy management tools and software
• Standardized building management solutions for unserved market of smaller buildings and residences
• Automation of industrial processes for improved efficiency

Schneider Electric is French and older than GE

Market driven regulation

What is going to drive this is regulation dominated by audits. It is very difficult to change behaviour– but APC clearly believes that the regulators are going to give it a good try.

APC is not anti regulation – what it sees coming is coming international legisaltion that will effectively require various kinds of audits and the solution to this is, it says, is instrumentation.

• Audits can’t provide benchmarking unless they are a year long
• Audits can’t provide usage patterns unless they are a week long
• Audits can’t even provide a daily number unless they are a day long
• Snapshot audits have very little actionable value
• Audits require expert observation / interpretation
• Audits can’t provide real-time guidance or alerts
• Audits can’t immediately show results of user actions / behaviors
• Any effective auditing program must have repeated audits

APC says that 90% of the carbon emissions in a data center come from operations, not construction and much of that could be avoided by efficiency improvements of energy using devices thorugh simple measures including eradicating suboptimal equipment configurations or settings , changing behaviour and automation.

The company is aware of the challenges it faces.

Rasmussen says that 73% of users disregard energy efficient investments with a payback time above two years and that in the commercial sector, many energy-efficiency investments have 6-12 years payback. He remains confident. There are not that many companies with the mix of technologies and the scale to tackle a market that requires engagement on a global scale, he says.

Schneider Electric sees its future business being built around control & automation provision, energy management system provision and on-site energy system provision.

In Part Two: The technology that underpins EcostruXure?