Dive Brief:

• Walgreens will use EnerNOC's energy intelligence software to manage utility bills at more than 8,300 stores across the United States, the companies announced last week.
• The deal is a good get for EnerNOC's new business segment, going after larger accounts including corportations and governments to provide energy management capabilities.
• A spokesman for the demand management company told Greentech Media that while there is no future commitment signed yet, EnerNOC hopes to provide Walgreens with real-time metering and monitoring services down the line.

Dive Insight:

EnerNOC and Walgreens last week announced they had teamed up to manage billing for the drugstore chain, but the industry-leader in demand management is hoping that's just the beginning.

"Managing energy expenses from over 30,000 discrete utility accounts can be a daunting task, but EnerNOC's energy intelligence software centralizes that data," Monica Ferrer, senior manager of energy and utilities at Walgreens, said in a statement. "We are excited to standardize on the EnerNOC platform and increase control over our energy costs, which are a significant component of our overall operating expenses."

EnerNOC said its software will allow Walgreens to create more accurate energy budgets, track performance, and identify top priorities for improvement. "Companies like Walgreens gain a competitive advantage when they deploy energy intelligence software to improve corporate governance," said Eric Erston, vice president of global sales at EnerNOC.

But in an interview with Green Tech,EnerNOC Vice President of Marketing and Product Management Fielder Hiss said the deal was hopefully just the beginning. “This is an on-ramp,” Hiss said. “We’re in the process of this first stage. There’s no commitment for Walgreens, but we hope to expand this to real-time metering and monitoring for them, optimizing energy spend. The base capability is really just trying to deal with all the data.”

Bill consolidation, locating errors and tracking usage trends are all included in EnerNOC's most basic packages of energy management software. Features like tracking efficiency improvements, forecasting new peak usage and verifying the impacts of projects are included in broader rollouts.