NorthStar ACE™, has been nominated as a finalist in two categories in the prestigious 2016 Fierce Innovation Awards. NorthStar ACE™ (Advanced Connected Energy) was introduced last week at Intelec in Austin, Texas, and is designed to change the way energy storage is managed.

The 2016 Fierce Innovation Awards identifies and showcases telecom and communications technologies that matter the most – the technologies that have the biggest impact on our future. The winner of 2016 awards will be announced on November 17. NorthStar ACE™ has been nominated as a finalist in two categories within Business Transformation Management, recognizing the forward-thinking operations platforms that allow service providers and network operators to innovate now and into the future.

“It is fantastic that our innovation NorthStar ACE™ has already received such recognition. We are finalists both in the category Cloud Services and in BSS/OSS – business support systems and operational support systems for telecom service providers”, says NorthStar’s CEO Hans Lidén.

NorthStar ACE™ is a fully integrated and cost optimized solution combining Bluetooth communication with an Internet of Things (IoT) concept. The user can retrieve real time and historical performance data wirelessly, both locally through a smartphone app and remotely through a cloud service. The batteries are managed from manufacturing throughout the life of the product. The cloud service is built with a fleet management approach, where data is aggregated and displayed on a network level, but still only requires a few clicks to display detailed data for a single site or battery.

“Voice and data service is something that many take for granted. But in the end it all comes down to having reliable power. NorthStar ACE™ will give operators and tower companies a powerful solution to gain full visibility and control of their energy storage, without even having to set foot on site. We will see the total cost of ownership reduce dramatically, as NorthStar ACE™ helps prevent most battery failures, thereby increasing network uptime and reducing costs for batteries and related operating expenses”, says Hans Lidén.

NorthStar ACE™ is well received among key customers who have been introduced to the solution and is seen as a true game changer in the industry. The solution will be deployed in select installations during Q4 2016 and be fully available in the market from Q1 2017. It will initially target telecom and other standby applications, with plans to move the technology into other applications in the near future.