Interview with MeteoViva Inc. CEO Jean-Marie Bergeal on Aquicore partnership

How big is the demand for IoT solutions right now in the US building market?

With the availability of cheap sensors and communications solutions buildings are now designed or retrofitted with a wealth of sensors to bring insight on temperature, occupation, lighting, usage and even traffic and parking. While smart technology is seen as helping deliver a better user experience, better management and use of resources, the business case is not always clear. And that is why good market size figures are hard to come by. That is in contrast with the MeteoViva value proposition. As an IoT solution, not only does MeteoViva Climate deliver better comfort, energy efficiency and reduced operational costs, but the achieved payback is often below the 2 year mark. In addition, we find that in a portfolio context, the solution delivers additional savings that are even higher than the energy savings. Using publicly available information, one can conservatively estimate the US potential for MeteoViva-like solutions in the tens of billions of dollars.

MeteoViva has its own management platform as well, so what will be the superior value for MeteoViva's clients with the partnership?

What we see in the Aquicore partnership is a way to complement our own offerings. While MeteoViva focuses on comfort, energy and operational efficiency through the control of HVAC installations, Aquicore complements that with a view of buildings that encompasses utility, equipment, data, tenant billing and budget management.

What exactly are you planning with Aquicore?

Because of Aquicore’s broad customer base, we see the opportunity to gain visibility amongst US players that will get exposed to MeteoViva’s value proposition. Not only will existing Aquicore customers be exposed to the MeteoViva concept via the Aquicore platform that they currently use, but Aquicore will also proactively draw their customer base to the potential benefits of the MeteoViva technology.

Could you give an outlook about the future.

Where do you see IoT operation areas for MeteoViva?

There is a lot of buzz around IoT, and it means different things to different people. It is striking that conferences that focus on the impact of IoT in the real estate market bring together two very different crowds. One that is coming from a well-established industry that is, by nature, slow to evolve and adopt new practices and technologies, the other coming from the technology side, claiming that technology will revolutionize the industry. They speak different languages, and it is clear that the buyers need to be convinced, starting with the need to be spoken to in a language that they understand. And this language has to include what speaks to building owners and operators in the short run as well as in the long run. In the long run, I see the potential for further integration between the data that can be collected about space utilization, for example, and its use for further optimizing comfort and energy usage. Similarly, we see examples of direct user feedback on their comfort experience, in real time, this can also be factored into the MeteoViva approach to delivering value to a building or a portfolio of building.