Växjö, Sweden --- (METERING.COM) --- May 13, 2008 – Swedish energy company Växjö Energi AB (VEAB) and Logica, an IT and business services company, have launched EnergiKollen, a solution encouraging consumers to better understand and thus lower their energy consumption. The solution includes a function enabling consumers to compete with each other in energy saving. EnergiKollen, which won the European Utility Award for Customer Excellence at the Metering Europe conference in October 2007, is now available to more than 20,000 households equipped with smart meters in the town of Växjö in the south of Sweden.

EnergiKollen aims to increase the awareness of energy consumers by making it easier and more interesting to monitor and change their energy usage. The intent is to engage the overall community in the city of Växjö, from young to old to save energy. EnergiKollen plays an important part in the SAMS project, an energy saving initiative aiming to reduce electricity usage in Växjö by 5 per cent.

EnergiKollen is a web-based solution with easy-to-follow graphics outlining changes of energy consumption. Customers of VEAB can log on to the service over the Internet free of charge in order to analyze their usage of electricity, water and heating. They are also able to compare the energy consumption of different households; for example, being able to see how much energy is being used by people living in a similar sized apartment motivates customers to lower their usage.

Ann-Mari Ståhlberg, CEO of VEAB, said: “VEAB is part of many initiatives contributing to a better environment and we are in the forefront when it comes to sustainable energy development. We have succeeded in reducing carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels by 86 per cent since 1993, while reducing the total amount of emissions by 30 per cent per capita in the town of Växjö. With EnergiKollen we can build on our achievements and offer our customers what we always strive for – namely the opportunity to impact and reduce energy consumption.”

Anders Wallin, responsible for Utilities at Logica in Sweden, said: “We are convinced that technology is one of the most important enablers for reducing the environmental impact of many businesses. Smart environmental solutions are a priority for us and EnergiKollen is a good example of how you can achieve major improvements with a combination of technology and user-friendly design.”

EnergiKollen is based on Microsoft .NET and Oracle databases. As part of the next phase of the project, the service will be made available to commercial users, who will be able to access additional advanced services for energy analysis at a cost.