Apogee Interactive Addresses 19th National Energy Services Conference in San Diego.

Price or Carbon Footprint - Which Influences Energy Efficiency Behavior More?

ATLANTA -- Apogee Interactive Inc. vice presidents John Laun and Everett "Chip" Perkins will address the 19th National Energy Services Conference in San Diego, Jan. 26-Jan. 29, hosted by the Association of Energy Service Professionals. More than 700 energy industry professionals from utilities, regulatory agencies, public benefits associations, government organizations, consulting firms and vendors attend the four-day conference each year, which explores the latest thinking and newest technologies for improving residential and commercial energy efficiency.

Apogee's executive vice president and chief development officer Laun will co-present with Xcel Energy and Control4 on a revolutionary television and web-based home area network technology called the Home Energy Manager. A part of Xcel Energy's SmartGridCity[TM] project, the installation of a Home Energy Manager enables homeowners to program their homes to respond to environmental and price signals from Xcel Energy, all from the comfort of their couch. It's done through the remote control, everyone's favorite household tool.

"As an integral part of SmartGridCity[TM], this project will evaluate homeowner responses to renewable energy and price signals," says Thor Bjork, an analyst with Xcel Energy. "We're interested to see how customers react to the information they're getting and discovering what motivates them to conserve, reduce their carbon footprint or make other changes to their energy use."

Paul Nagel of Control4 said, "Control4's platform for the home provides tremendous convenience to homeowners. Now, by adding energy analysis and reporting, we deliver access to the information consumers want when they want to have it."

Apogee's Perkins will co-present at the AESP conference with Michael O'Leary, senior engineer with PECO Energy, Exelon Corp.'s Philadelphia-based electric and gas utility subsidiary. PECO launched a customized suite of online interactive customer applications from Apogee on the PECO website in mid-2008. The company carefully monitors the usage of these applications daily, weekly and monthly through a Web analytics package to glean any correlations between marketing promotions and website page activity.

"Energy is dominating the national agenda this year and our clients are stepping up their already aggressive energy efficiency programs for customers," reports Perkins, vice president of business and project development for Apogee Interactive. The Atlanta-based firm develops and hosts online energy analysis tools and websites for more than 400 electric and natural gas utilities.

The online applications engage customers and increase participation in the utilities' conservation programs. Consumers can learn how much money they can put in their pocket and pounds of carbon dioxide they can keep out the environment by taking various actions, including paying their bills online.

The Association for Energy Service Professionals (www.aesp.org) is a national 1,400-member organization dedicated to improving energy efficiency, energy management and the use of distributed renewable resources nationwide.

Apogee Interactive Inc. is a leading provider of online energy analysis applications for the utility industry and is headquartered in Atlanta. More than 400 energy companies currently use Apogee's customer- and company-facing energy-use analysis tools, call center programs and Web content modules. The company also develops custom utility websites now totaling more than 100. Apogee's customers include utilities such as Southern Company Services (NYSE: SO), American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP), Entergy (NYSE: ETR), the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, Tennessee Valley Authority, Salt River Project and Energy Trust of Oregon.