Power Products Manufacturer Acquires Industrial IoT Platform, Broadening Its Offering of Enhanced Connectivity Solutions
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This article is sponsored by Generac Power Systems, Inc., a manufacturer of generators and other power products for residential, commercial, and industrial applications.
In an increasingly digital world where consumers and businesses alike rely on an array of devices to facilitate tasks or keep facilities running, consistent and uninterrupted connectivity becomes ever more important. Generac Industrial Power, one of North America's largest suppliers of power generation equipment, has addressed that need for its customers by acquiring Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) platform developer Blue Pillar.
Part of Generac Power Systems, Inc. (NYSE: GNRC), a global manufacturing and design company for energy technology and related power products for over 60 years, Generac announced the acquisition in October 2022. Among the company's newest additions, Blue Pillar's technology is enabling Generac to expand its service offerings to deliver enhanced connectivity in industrial and commercial applications.
Blue Pillar's platform makes IoT simpler, allowing customers to remotely monitor and control OEM solutions out of the box and from virtually anywhere in the world. Founded in 2006, the company focused on healthcare and university environments and connecting on-site energy assets. The idea behind the acquisition is to offer seamless connectivity solutions for energy technology in an easy-to-use format while also controlling energy consumption, lessening customers' power-grid reliance, and increasing equipment performance.
"Generac was on the top of my list, given their prominence and unique presence in the marketplace," Brad Witter, co-founder of Blue Pillar and current vice president of connectivity at Generac, explains regarding the acquisition. "With the electrification strategy that's going on in the industry, becoming part of Generac was a perfect fit. The Blue Pillar platform is a powerful value-add to Generac’s energy ecosystem, as customers and utility partners now have easier access to an even broader suite of services, including holistic site monitoring.”
The companies are alike in their client base and their commitment to sustainable energy, and their products complement each other to allow for numerous integration opportunities. Generac aims to offer value-added control and monitoring capabilities as built-in features in its future power generation products.
Thomas Insights (TI): What trends did Generac see in the industry that encouraged the company to acquire Blue Pillar?
Brad Witter (BW): One trend is that residential and consumer products are leading the commercial and industrial space by about 10 to 20 years when it comes to IoT solutions — both on the utility side and the general connectivity side. In the electrification and energy portion of the marketplace, we're seeing a lot more commercial and industrial sites adopting alternative energy solutions that then require monitoring. In addition to generators, they’re also looking at solar, battery storage, and alternative fuels.
A lot of customers just assume that connectivity is already a given, and they want to be able to connect their facility equipment and manage things at work as easily as they do at their home. So we're definitely seeing a trend toward hitting the wave of connectivity and IoT solutions in the industrial and commercial sectors now.
With Blue Pillar as part of the Generac family, we can continue to connect to other brands of facility equipment, including generators, core backup power equipment, meters, and HVAC equipment, providing connectivity solutions to address this change we see in the marketplace. The Blue Pillar platform and Generac's industrial equipment experience make us a much more extensible solution for commercial and industrial clients.
TI: To stay competitive in the face of this trend, does Generac have any specific connectivity goals that it's trying to accomplish with the Blue Pillar platform?
BW: Over the coming years, the goal is to have every piece of equipment that comes out of Generac on the industrial product line be out-of-box IoT-capable and connected, ready to integrate into the marketplace with advanced features. The idea is that the Generac product suite would be pre-connected and all set to incorporate into the power grid and the larger ecosystem.
TI: Can you give our readers an example highlighting how the Generac product suite is already supporting that goal of connectivity in your clients' operations?
BW: Working with one of Generac and Blue Pillar's mutual customers, a utility company, was one of the first times our two companies did business together. The utility company would be launching a DERMS program — a utility program for connecting commercial and industrial equipment to the grid for interacting during points of utility distress — which can create cost-saving opportunities for equipment owners.
Early on, the utility company determined that they wanted a way to simply and cost-effectively offer connectivity to the downstream equipment that was going to be participating. They chose Blue Pillar as the connectivity platform for this program so that every time a customer enrolled, they would get the Blue Pillar solution, and it would be very easy to scale. We launched the program as part of a very successful rollout, and it's since continued to grow.
The utility company saw the side benefit of having all of those assets connected, so they decided to integrate the Blue Pillar system across the entire footprint of over 100 sites in their corporate infrastructure for internal monitoring as well as status, health, and outage management. They found it to be very easy and cost-effective on the commercial side. In just 12 weeks last year, we were able to roll that out across the full site portfolio.
That was one of those journeys where we started with one solution in mind, demonstrated that capability to the customer, and then they took a step back and said, "Wow, there's a lot more we could do with this. Why don't we apply it over here?" Then we helped expand that capability to facilitate broader connectivity and simplification within their organization. That was a real success story for us, and the utility company continues to be a great mutual customer under the Generac logo that we continue to support and grow with.
TI: So current clients are asking how else they can integrate your connectivity solutions. When you have prospective customers considering your product suite, however, what's the most common question you receive?
BW: "How difficult is this going to be to put in place?" and "Can you connect to my other equipment so I don't need to have seven systems at my one facility to get all the connectivity that I need?" What these and other questions really translate to is, "How painful is this going to be for the benefits I gain?" That speaks to our market differentiation: We are committed to being the better, faster, more economical solution out there across this kind of product line.
It's important to point out that we are skilled at connecting disparate equipment. For example, we can connect 40-year-old hospital equipment with new equipment that is straight from the manufacturing line. It all has to connect. To that end and regardless of the challenge, we continue to navigate the market and optimize solutions for end consumers.
To learn more about how Blue Pillar technology is enhancing Generac products, contact Generac Power Systems today.
