April 7, 2013
Kevin Johnson: Founder & CEO, OutSmart Power Systems, Natick
Matt Volpini
Kevin Johnson is an engineer, family man, churchgoer, soccer player and at the forefront of what's possible in energy efficiency.
Johnson' s venture-backed company, Natick-based OutSmart Power Systems, was founded in 2008 and has raised about $9 million in venture capital.
OutSmart has inserted itself squarely into the crowded field fighting for market share among high-energy-density commercial and industrial buildings like grocery stores, pharmaceutical laboratories and data centers.
Johnson believes OutSmart, which employs 14 full-time workers, has an edge over larger and well-known companies like building automation systems makers Honeywell, EnerNOC and Cisco.
His company has 15 customer sites, including Bedford-based Progress Software Corp.
Mike Skiotis, senior facilities manager at Progress, praised OutSmart in a recent announcement put out by the company.
"With OutSmart, we can separate conditioning load from server load, measure and verify energy reductions, and ensure the persistence of measures we've implemented," Skiotis said. "OutSmart has the potential to be a game-changer for how energy and equipment are managed in facilities."
Deeper Data
One reason for Johnson's confidence is his company's proprietary EnergyMate sensors, which are both smaller than traditional sensors and contain processing power allowing them to pull data at the circuit level. That data is then sent and hosted in the cloud, where building managers can crunch and analyze it through OutSmart's software platform.
The sensors can also discern when something interesting or notable has occurred, and send emails or text messages to facilities manager.
"Our sensors are smart because they report not on a standard interval, but they make decisions about what to report based on changes," Johnson said.
While a competitor's system might send an update every five minutes about a building's lighting system, OutSmart's system would likely choose not to send such frequent updates about lights because there is rarely anything notable happening on those circuits, he said.
Circuit-level data means facilities managers can get a deeply detailed picture of what's happening in their compressors, HVAC and lighting systems and other equipment. Using the data, a business could discern whether certain equipment was programmed correctly, if motors need to be replaced or if a new energy-efficiency project is working like it's supposed to, Johnson said.
"If you looked at the power distribution network in most buildings, it's basically a dumb network," he said. "There's really no understanding of where the energy is going, how things are hooked up or how things are performing when they're actually hooked up."
When that data is properly acted upon, the financial results can be impressive, sometimes with a return on investment of a year or less. Johnson said one customer — a supermarket — discovered through data analysis that its HVAC system wasn't programmed properly and saved more than $30,000 in a year.
Venture Engineering
OutSmart was spawned from Johnson's venture engineering firm, Manifold Products, which would take an entrepreneurial concept and engineer and market and patent it for licensing or sale.
It has spawned two other companies that are now under different management or ownership.
For Johnson's part, he is working full time on OutSmart. It's where he sees the most opportunity. n
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Kevin Johnson, OutSmart Power Systems
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