By Ashley Halligan, an analyst at Software Advice and
guest blogger for Energy Currents

As consumers seek awareness in terms of their energy consumption — both residential and commercial — new technologies are showing up across the market to perform a wide variety of energy-related functions.

Measuring usage, identifying inefficiencies, suggesting upgrades, benchmarking overall performance, and even gamifying consumption habits to encourage more responsible behaviors — these functions provide a vast insight to environmental performance. Some software companies offer suites including functions for all sorts of metrics. Application developers are creating applications to meet very specific needs, and some are quite affordable. Here are three that any organization could benefit from:

Melon Power is an application recently awarded second-place in the EPA’s Apps for Energy contest designed to address the White House’s recent Call to Action deemed “Green Button.” Green Button encourages energy suppliers to make consumption data more accessible to its customers, and with 12-month benchmarking data, the app allows users to input that data and then calculates and reports an ENERGY STAR score.

Another app, HVAC ASHRAE 62.1-2012, performs an entirely different function: It measures air quality and determines whether a commercial building is operating within minimum ventilation standards determined by ASHRAE.

Lastly, ecoInsight Mobile Audit for iPad acts as an energy audit tool capturing user-inputted performance data while doing a building walkthrough. Once the data is uploaded to
ecoInsight’s site, the application analyzes it and provides feedback and upgrade suggestions to its users.

Apps like these, ranging from $19.99 to $500 — or in some cases free altogether — demonstrate that any organization, with or without investment capital to commit to energy management tools, can implement some form of technology.

Read more about these applications and the White House’s Call to Action on the Software Advice blog: 3 Energy Management & Environmental Performance Apps Any Organization Can Afford.