Companies Launch Demonstration Site to Illustrate the Consumer and Utility Benefits of a BMW Electric Vehicle in a Smart Energy Home Powered by Tendril Connect™ Cloud Platform

BOULDER, Colo. & SAN ANTONIO--Tendril, the provider of the cloud platform for the Energy Internet, and the BMW Group Technology Office USA, today announced they are partnering to build out a demonstration smart energy home in Mountain View, Calif. to prepare for the roll-out and integration of the new BMW ActiveE electric vehicle (EV). The ActiveE emphasizes sustainable mobility without compromising driving pleasure. The partnership extends Tendril's leadership position in the growing smart energy home marketplace and further validates the company's platform-based approach to enabling the Energy Internet by connecting makers of smart "things", like EVs, with utilities and consumers.

"Customer satisfaction is at the forefront of everything we do, and this smart energy home demonstration will help ensure that connecting and charging electric vehicles is as simple as possible for our customers"

Tendril will be demonstrating how its cloud platform integrates the BMW ActiveE with the home area network to provide orchestrated and prioritized charging at its booth (#771) at DistribuTECH taking place Jan. 24-26 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio, Texas.

"Customer satisfaction is at the forefront of everything we do, and this smart energy home demonstration will help ensure that connecting and charging electric vehicles is as simple as possible for our customers," said Dirk Rossberg, head of the BMW Group Technology Office USA. "Tendril's cloud platform allows us to control the EV charging process in conjunction with a smart energy home environment and adds a simple, yet powerful consumer energy management application in Tendril Energize. It allows us to bring the connected vehicle together with the Smart Grid. Our goal is to ensure that the BMW ActiveE is a good ‘grid citizen' in 2012 and beyond."

Ensuring that the ActiveE is ready to go at all times, while making use of cheaper off-peak charging when possible, is crucial to making the EV transition a smooth one in the utility and automotive market. The BMW Group Technology Office USA will use its smart energy home demonstration facility, powered by Tendril, to help refine the charging and monitoring of the ActiveE. Tendril's cloud-based energy management platform, Tendril Connect™, will provide the connectivity to integrate the EV charging station into the home, to local utilities and energy service providers, as well as to BMW. Tendril Energize™, a suite of applications including a home energy management web portal, will provide control and monitoring of the charging station, to make it simple for everyday users to manage charging stations.

For utilities and energy service providers, Tendril Connect delivers insight into the location of EVs on the grid distribution network so that they can proactively manage hot spots of growth in energy consumption. Utilities also benefit from the ability to communicate with EV owners regarding planned Demand Response (DR) and Direct Load Control (LC) events. The platform also establishes EVs as another manageable load in addition to other components of the home, like water heaters and smart appliances.

"Tendril Connect and Tendril Energize were purpose-built to help utilities, consumers and third party partners adapt and manage the changes coming in the energy industry, including those necessary for the roll-out of electric vehicles," said Adrian Tuck, CEO at Tendril. "We are excited to be working with such a prestigious brand in the automotive world. I'm confident our technology will provide the best possible experience to ensure users can easily make the best decisions related to monitoring, understanding and managing their EVs' energy consumption and that utilities can optimize the grid."

BMW's smart energy home will include smart thermostats provided by Tendril, a solar panel installation, home appliances, residential lighting and other smart devices. All of these will be centrally managed by Tendril Connect and accessible via Tendril Energize. BMW and Tendril will integrate a battery charging station, to help manage the intermittent energy produced by the solar panel and to mitigate the home's impact during periods of peak electricity demand.

Tendril Connect provides the open standards-based communications, extensibility and security necessary to support billions of networked devices. Built from the ground up to handle "big data", it applies behavioral science expertise and analytics to generate the intelligence from connected devices needed to support the emerging marketplace of new services. It is licensed by 35 customers including top global energy service providers; manufacturers of smart applications and devices, including Whirlpool Corporation; energy leaders, including Siemens Energy; and, nearly all the leading smart meter communications vendors.

Built on Tendril's cloud platform, Tendril Energize is an application suite that leverages proven behavioral models, so that utilities and ecosystem product and service providers can persistently engage consumers with Energy Efficiency, DR, and LC programs to balance loads and optimize generation costs. The company has seen increased demand for its platform and applications, as utilities and energy ecosystem partners look to drive consumer engagement in home energy management.

Today's announcement follows on the heels of significant momentum at Tendril the past year, including:

The adoption of the Tendril Connect platform by several energy service providers in 2011 including Origin Energy, an integrated energy company with 4.6 million customers, NorthWestern Energy and Tucson Electric Power.
Tendril platform native support for "Green Button"—data consumers' energy usage data provided in a simple, common, electronic format. Utilities and energy service providers can use the Tendril Connect platform to generate Green Button data easily and securely for their consumers. Application developers can now use Tendril Connect to develop applications and make them available to millions of consumers, beginning with the 6 million energy consumers in California who already have access to Green Button data.
The success of the first of its kind Tendril Connect Platform Application Developer Program, which is being used by more than 150 developers to build on the Tendril Connect cloud platform.
The results from San Diego Gas & Electric's Biggest Energy Saver campaign, which led to an average of 20 percent energy savings for consumers, and utilized the Tendril Connect cloud platform, Tendril in-home smart devices, and a social media gaming application.
Integration of the Tendril Connect platform with leading smart metering and Smart Grid platform providers Elster, Itron, Landis + Gyr, Sensus, Silver Spring Networks, and Trilliant, which together represent more than 85 percent of the North American smart meter communications market.
A strategic partnership with and investment from Siemens.
The opening of an office in Melbourne, Australia.
An alliance with Whirlpool Corporation, the world's leading appliance manufacturer, to enable the roll-out of smart appliances powered by Tendril Connect.

BMW Group In America

BMW of North America, LLC has been present in the United States since 1975. Rolls-Royce Motor Cars NA, LLC began distributing vehicles in 2003. The BMW Group in the United States has grown to include marketing, sales, and financial service organizations for the BMW brand of motor vehicles, including motorcycles, the MINI brand, and the Rolls-Royce brand of Motor Cars; DesignworksUSA, a strategic design consultancy in California; a technology office in Silicon Valley and various other operations throughout the country. BMW Manufacturing Co., LLC in South Carolina is part of BMW Group's global manufacturing network and is the exclusive manufacturing plant for all X5 and X3 Sports Activity Vehicles and X6 Sports Activity Coupes. The BMW Group sales organization is represented in the U.S. through networks of 339 BMW passenger car and BMW Sports Activity Vehicle centers, 139 BMW motorcycle retailers, 110 MINI passenger car dealers, and 36 Rolls-Royce Motor Car dealers. BMW (US) Holding Corp., the BMW Group's sales headquarters for North America, is located in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey.

Information about BMW Group products is available to consumers via the Internet at: www.bmwgroupna.com.

About Tendril

Tendril is the Energy Platform company, delivering end-to-end consumer engagement products, applications and services powered by Tendril Connect™—an open standards-based, secure and scalable platform that takes the complexity out of the Energy Internet. Tendril Connect creates a dialogue between energy service providers, third party providers of smart products and services, and consumers. Delivering consumer engagement software, in-home products and applications as well as easy to integrate utility solutions such as Demand Response and Energy Efficiency, Tendril offers unparalleled insight into energy decisions, making the Energy Marketplace a reality. The company is venture backed by VantagePoint Capital Partners, Siemens Venture Capital (SVC), Good Energies, RRE Ventures and GE. For more information, visit www.tendrilinc.com.