Energy Companies Embrace TelePresence

Posted by KBZ Blogging Team

Energy companies are making headlines because consumption is increasing and so are concerns about global warming.  As a result corporations are looking for novel ways to cut energy usage.  The US federal government is trying to help by making $58 billion available to energy companies in the form of cash and tax credits as part of the stimulus program, and TANDBERG, now part of Cisco, is helping organizations on both sides go green through video conferencing and telepresence.

Video conferencing systems like the TANDBERG’s T3 and T1 systems and desktop video solutions have emerged as a viable means to help companies reduce greenhouse emission – as well as increase productivity.  Consequently energy industry companies are adopting TANDBERG video communications solutions as a means to help them speed time to market, increase productivity, and streamline production issues.

Tampa Electric provides energy services to more than 645,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers. Since 1999 the company has been using TANDBERG videoconferencing equipment to enable its energy planners to communicate, sometimes in large operations centers and at other time for executive production meetings.  In addition, Tampa relies on the TANDBERG Border Controller (replaced by Video Communication Server) to connect to external parties doing engineering work at some of its plants.  The company also takes mobile cameras to power plants and uses them for quality audits and maintenance audits.  Tampa estimated that productivity has quadrupled from its use of video communications.

The change has also improved the company’s bottom line; by installing TANDBERG’s Content Server Tampa is able to record its video calls.  Previously the company was paying as much as $600 an hour to outside firms to record those sessions.

Another customer is Eni, an Italian energy company.  The firm employs approximately 76,000 people in 70 countries and generated €83.6 billion in its last fiscal year.  Since the summer of 2005 Eni has been using TANDBERG IP-based video conferencing equipment and multi-point control units to support video conferencing services in hundreds of offices on five continents.  Annually Eni holds 52,000 telepresence sessions, cutting its CO2 emissions by 11,500 metric tonnes!

Fueled by the growing use of IT products, energy consumption is expected to climb in the coming years.  Using video conferencing products helps to contain such increases and provides companies with the additional, proven benefits of increased productivity and reduced expenses.

Paul Korzeniowski, KBZ Blogging Team