Do you drive a hybrid car – or do you know someone who does? Are you one of those who regularly sneaks a peek at the dashboard display to check your current gas mileage?

If so, you have great insight into what consumers will be able to experience as networking and digital technology come together in the home to provide detailed information on household energy consumption patterns and the related costs.

The smart grid is coming to individual homes and businesses near you (see sidebar for more about commercial buildings), signaling the start of a new era.

The Next Step in Commercial Building Energy Management

Having real-time visibility into their energy consumption, and therefore being able to act upon it to achieve both financial and environmental efficiency, is a relatively new concept for most residential consumers. Commercial building owners and operators, on the other hand, already have some experience with tools like the Cisco Network Building Mediator to help them monitor and manage their facilities’ energy use.

But the ability to manage energy consumption and costs just got easier for these customers. As of today, instead of managing energy use one building at a time, they will be able to extend that control seamlessly across their portfolio of buildings with the Cisco Network Building Mediator Manager.