Blue Pillar and TimberRock Partner to Drive Fully Sustainable, Carbon-Neutral Campus at Bar-T Recreational Facilities
Collaboration Provides Blueprint For Facility of The Future® via IoT Edge Network Technology
FREDERICK, Md., Sept. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Blue Pillar, the leading Internet of Things (IoT) network solutions provider for facility-based data and control systems, today announced a collaboration with Frederick MD-based TimberRock Advanced Energy, to deliver microgrid connectivity and control solutions to the facility infrastructure of the historic Bar-T camp. Through the integration of Blue Pillar's award-winning Aurora® grid-edge, IoT connectivity and control platform, the partners are showcasing the evolution of edge technologies in tracking the greenness of energy on a real-time basis throughout the energy lifecycle. TimberRock selected Blue Pillar as a cyber-secure platform to connect, control, and provide real-time energy data from the multiple distributed energy resources already deployed at Bar-T. The system will allow both Bar-T and their energy supplier to realize greater energy savings, resiliency, and revenue generation through market arbitrage opportunities.
Bar-T is a community treasure in Frederick County, Maryland, offering the very best in after-school childcare, summer day camps, outdoor education, and corporate team building and events. With an expansion in 2006, Bar-T's owners, Joe and Nancy Richardson, opened their Mountainside Challenge & Retreat Center and Summer Camp, located on 115-acres of farmland. With a commitment to operating an environmentally-friendly business, the Richardsons have installed onsite Solar PV, battery storage, and a wind turbine to help power their campus-wide facilities.
Bar-T teamed with TimberRock to implement their sustainable energy strategy. Along with their generation and storage solutions, the strategy now includes the pushing of real-time energy data from all their energy assets into TimberRock's platform. This system provides the owners and TimberRock with the ability to execute control commands for these assets based upon a real-time analysis of both site and market variables.
To accomplish this real-time asset and market interplay, TimberRock turned to fellow Frederick-based technology company Blue Pillar to build the IoT network layer to connect the wide variety of renewable energy and metering assets at Bar-T. Blue Pillar's scope included connecting all of these devices to an IoT gateway, pushing the real-time data to the cloud and then via API to TimberRock's platform, while providing secure control capability. Blue Pillar supports this with an interface for visualization of site and energy data, reporting & alarming, and data historian capabilities.
"The Bar-T campus-wide energy integration solution exemplifies how a robust connectivity layer and edge network, coupled with TimberRock's technologies, can produce a next-generation energy management system," remarked Brent Hollenbeck, Founder and CEO of TimberRock.
Blue Pillar CEO, Tom Willie, sees the Bar-T project as the fulfillment of a solution strategy forged by Blue Pillar three years ago. "In 2016, Blue Pillar launched a new initiative that we called Facility of the Future®, which is a blueprint for addressing the energy needs of Commercial and Industrial (C+I) customers showcasing how edge connectivity and control can bolster energy efficiency, resiliency, and self-sufficiency solutions," notes Willie. "By layering TimberRock's greenhouse gas tracking software on top of our IoT network, we are demonstrating how the Facility of the Future can fundamentally change how to utilize energy and interact with the grid."
About Blue Pillar
Blue Pillar connects the things that power our world. The only IoT solution which utilizes end-to-end software automation to simplify IoT deployments, Blue Pillar unleashes the power of real-time data to strengthen critical infrastructure and accelerate business. With Blue Pillar, companies have unprecedented insight into their energy needs to become more efficient and have peace of mind that when the grid goes down, their business will continue forward. Learn more at bluepillar.com or on Twitter at @bluepillarinc.
About TimberRock Advanced Energy
TimberRock is an energy services company that delivers lower costs, improved energy security and increased efficiency for commercial and institutional customers. Our process is simple, we seek to first understand your organization's strategy and then design, finance and operate energy solutions that align to your mission. TimberRock's proprietary microgrid solutions also participate in external energy and ancillary service markets to empower a smarter, cleaner and more efficient electrical grid.
SOURCE Blue Pillar
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