Calico Energy Services and Aclara have announced a strategic partnership to provide an integrated set of advanced load control, analytics, and demand response solutions to municipals, cooperative utilities, wholesale power cooperatives, and IOU customers.

Relying on standards-based integration and technical design, the two companies are offering a comprehensive demand-response solution to Aclara’s more than 500 utility customers, as well as new customers.

Through this partnership, Aclara will utilize Calico’s software systems to create Aclara’s Demand Response Management System (DRMS), which will provide Aclara customers with the ability to perform forecasting, baselining and settlement. The Aclara DRMS will offer the unique integration capabilities provided by Calico’s Enterprise Service Bus to help utility customers mine information from and interact with a broad range of data sources, devices, and applications throughout an energy ecosystem.

Utilities will be able to explore what-if scenarios and adjust variables incrementally to identify new opportunities for optimizing energy throughout their grid. Based on these insights, dispatchers can then implement a broad range of demand side management strategies and operational improvements that leverage Aclara’s AMI networks.

Aclara and Calico intend to deliver an integrated solution that will provide a low-risk, affordable option for demand response and load control programs with fast rollout capabilities. Power providers will gain a single, flexible platform for a broad portfolio of load-reduction programs as well as the ability to expand control devices and support future needs.