Networking giant Cisco Systems is aggressively pursuing smart energy or green tech initiatives through its concept of Smart Connected Buildings.Cisco announced today that it is introducing the first of its product in the smart energy category called Network Building Mediator that was incubated in Cisco’s Globalization Center East in Bangalore, India. This is the first product to roll out of Cisco’s India operations, where they have also deployed this energy saving product in their Bangalore campus. ” We are making our India office sustainable, said Wim Elfrink, Chief Globalization Officer. They have started a competition in their India office to see which building uses energy in an efficient way.

Cisco’s Network Building Mediator is basically based on the technologies of Richard-Zeta, a California based company that Cisco acquired in early 2009. “We ciscoized,” is how some of the senior executives described their new product. The technology in Cisco’s Mediator is a “multi-protocol gateway,” said Sandeep Vij, VP at Cisco’s Bangalore office and the person who led the India team in developing the product. The product is built over an IP network and allows commercial buildings to monitor their heating, ventilation, cooling, lighting, electricity and security. The way the product works is it allows building operation managers to monitor, measure and act on their energy systems. The product can be customized and deployed to suit the needs of various businesses through their policy engine. That is each company can specify what kinds of energy saving policies they want to deploy for their buildings. How to use energy in a smart and efficient way is a central question that many businesses and countries are grappling with on a constant basis.

This new product is targeted to commercial buildings and their future plans include products for residential buildings too.”About 20 megacities use 70 percent of the world’s energy resources,” said Elfrink. He said they are working with various cities and governments around the world to deploy the product. Elfrink stressed quite a bit about the rapid pace of urbanization around the world and the industrialization of the Internet that will add an additional couple of billion people as new users in the next few years.

A favorite theme of Elfrink is the whole notion of “Intelligent Urbanization,” and the increased demand for energy needs put on cities and governments around the world.

When question about the sales target Cisco senior executives gave a broad answer saying that this is a new industry that is being created and difficult to answer the question.

How big is the addressable market? It is pegged at about $12 billion and can go up to $20 billion answered Marthin De Beer, Senior VP, emerging technology group. He added that even analysts are still trying to get their arms around the size of the market.In terms of who are the competitors De Beer said “It is a hard question,” and Cisco is likely to partner with more companies than compete.