HP Teams With C3, Hara For Energy Consulting

By Michael Kanellos

Hewlett-Packard wants to become a big player in energy management and energy efficiency, so it has reached out to two rising stars for help.

The company has launched a series of nine consulting services that will leverage the software from Hara and C3 to lower energy and resources consumption, retool organizations for efficiency and make energy reporting and accounting easier. HP's consulting services will focus on reducing energy in overall operations and will not, in most circumstances, get involved in redesigning finished products, according to Jay Allardyce, director of growth initiatives in the energy and sustainability management group. We asked if HP invested in either or both companies and Allardyce declined to comment. 

Avaya, which has set a goal of reducing its carbon footprint by 15 percent by 2015, is an early customer.

In some ways, HP follows in the footsteps of IBM, which positioned itself as a provider of consulting services and technology for a cleaner world. Like IBM, expect to see HP leverage the strengths in its consulting and computing groups, but the company will also try to exploit inventions from its laboratories. HP labs have been responsible for a large number of technological breakthroughs in circuit design and printing over the past several decades and many, possibly, could be ported to resources. PARC, after all, has figured out that a technology to control toner particles can be used effectively in water purification. (We met recently with HP's utility group -- here's the story.)

Hara is a natural customer for HP. The company has landed an number of high profile contracts with organizations like the City of Philadelphia, News Corp., the emirate of Abu Dhabi and others. The software helps organizations monitor, analyze and reduce energy consumption. If there is an incumbent in this field, Hara is it.

C3, meanwhile, is a great company for comic relief. The company -- a energy management company founded by Tom Siebel -- has only vaguely described its plans or services and come up with a logo, it loves to tout who sits on its various boards and organizations. Some participants include Condoleezza Rice (former Secretary of State), Spencer Abraham (former Secretary of Energy), Steve Ward (former CEO of Lenovo -- great guy, actually), Kristina Johnson (former Undersecretary for DOE) and Andy Karsner (former Assistant Secretary of the DOE).

Allardyce did not provide any clues on how interested customers might be able to get in touch with C3.