Canada is a rapidly evolving energy market. The country has a high mix of renewables integrated into its grid, with 60 percent of its electricity produced from hydro. However, there are still vast opportunities within the country for energy management technologies. Ontario for example, has seen energy prices soar for numerous reasons – from aging infrastructure to regulation decisions.

This opportunity to bring significant savings to the Canadian market through BuildingIQ’s 5i platform has led to a great partnership with EnergyCAP Canada Inc. – a company with a strong reputation and an ongoing commitment to energy savings. We recently had the pleasure of posing a few questions to Gerald Rubenovitch, President of EnergyCAP Canada Inc.

What vision does your company embrace that has led to its success?

Since its inception in 2003, EnergyCAP Canada Inc.’s sole mission has been to provide energy efficiency and management information systems to Canadian entities – especially to those that subscribe to the adage “what gets measured, gets managed.” Energy management and sustainability are our passion!

What attracted you to partner with BuildingIQ?

Our partnership with BuildingIQ makes perfect sense. Not only does it help us remain competitive in an ever-changing and volatile market place, but also it allows us to provide our clients with an enhanced energy management solution that brings greater operational efficiency, improved occupant comfort, in addition to retro-commissioning and closed loop control optimization. The use of advanced technologies, like BuildingIQ’s 5i Platform, should play an important and positive role in the uncertain energy future in Canada.

How are customers benefiting from EnergyCAP today?

We strongly believe that energy management and utility monitoring is a sound practice as it provides a competitive edge by reducing operating costs and resources. EnergyCAP’s software provides organizations with the tools necessary to meet today’s challenges vis-à-vis a single web-based platform. Institutional and commercial clients, such as the City of Toronto, Alberta Health Services, Ottawa Housing Corporation and more, use our platform for a variety of features, including utility bill processing and management, savings and analysis, data integration with G/L and asset management applications, reporting and presentations to stakeholders, sustainability and compliance, chargebacks and tenant rebilling.

How do you think the role of the energy manager has changed over the last decade?

There has been considerable evolution in the role over the last decade. Once tasked with overseeing and paying bills while supporting the efficient use of energy, they are now called upon to do much more. The maturation of the role could be attributed to the increased use of new technologies —such as those used for billing which allow electronic bill import, fast audits, and expedited payment processing— that have maximized the energy managers’ (EM) ability to get their “traditional” job done so they can tackle the expanded duties that have resulted from the evolution of the role.

The use of such technologies produces numerous benefits for EMs including:

• Eliminating time-consuming and tedious activities like data entry and processing
• Improving accuracy of reporting and overall transparency of operations
• Providing faster access to data that previously would have taken days or weeks to become available
• Saving hundreds of productivity hours

Having more time to spend analyzing data and energy expenditures has perhaps been the driving factor to turn the EM role into a management position, rather than clerical one. Nowadays, EMs work closely with facilities team, accounting, and even IT —in a collaborative manner— not only to support, but to champion sustainability programs.

It’s these changes that helped fuel our decision to partner with BuildingIQ and why we think the partnership has great potential in the Canadian market.

Gerald Rubenovitch became President of EnergyCAP Canada Inc. in 2008.