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Take energy efficiency all the way for better cost & carbon savings

Tackle hidden energy and operational waste with Internet of Things (IoT) energy insights.

In an article written for Energy and Sustainability Solutions magazine, Mike Cumby of Centrica Business Solutions explains how advanced energy intelligence helps you move beyond the obvious ‘quick win’ energy and operational efficiency savings for big results.

If you think you've taken energy efficiency all the way, think again! You can identify hidden opportunities to make big energy & operational savings by using IoT energy insights. Most building energy management systems are oblivious to what's happening beyond the meter – at a device and process level. That means you're missing out on major cost and carbon reduction opportunities.

How energy insights work

By attaching wireless IoT sensors to energy intensive assets at a circuit level and using an advanced energy management platform to analyse and visualise that captured data, you can gain complete 360O vision of your site-wide electricity. There are also options to include gas, heat, air flow and water usage, as well as on-site generators, such as solar and CHP systems.

These self-powered, wireless sensors are simply clipped onto the outgoing electrical wire that powers each device, without disrupting operations. Data is delivered in real-time to our PowerRadar™ energy management platform, which sits at the heart of customers' energy strategies. This creates a single, holistic view of your energy footprint – providing up-to-date visibility of energy and operational performance at the required level of detail.

By understanding how, when and where you're using energy across your entire site or multiple sites you can combat rising energy costs and reduce your carbon footprint. You can also uncover faults and vulnerabilities in your monitored equipment. These can be corrected before they cause problems or affect operational performance.

Data intelligence can also inform energy flexibility opportunities, such as shifting loads to avoid peak time power costs, or to drive payments from Demand Side Response (DSR).

Cost saving in action

Plastcoat, a division of Magna International, is using our advanced analytics to save nearly $2 million on its annual energy bill, while also improving predictive maintenance, operational efficiency and productivity.

Watch our video to see how Magna is using PowerRadar™ to drive big results.

Our technology is also enabling textile manufacturer Pincroft to dramatically reduce energy costs and carbon emissions. With a payback on investment in just 3 months, the project cut weekend energy spend by 94% and weekday energy spend by 29% and is forecast to deliver annual CO2 savings of 648 tonnes.

Increase operational efficiency & resilience

In some sectors, particularly manufacturing, we sometimes find that operational cost savings are higher than energy savings. Customers have on-demand access to equipment performance information – shining a bright light on operational improvement opportunities.

Anomalies picked up by the energy analytics software can identify deep-lying faults in equipment or weaknesses in operational performance that are difficult to detect. Data insights can also inform maintenance requirements, including predictive 24/7 alerts to reduce downtime, increase productivity and extend asset life. It's also possible to identify potential equipment failures even before they happen.

£211k saving for CEMEX

Global cement and asphalt producer CEMEX used our advanced IoT analytics to make a £211,383 saving at just one location. By monitoring real-time energy usage of critical energy-hungry machinery and using our PowerRadar™ platform to examine the data, we identified that a conveyor motor was not working correctly, which was creating a process bottleneck. Further cost savings have been made by identifying and eliminating unnecessary out-of-hours energy use.

Decarbonise your business and simplify compliance

Improving energy and operational efficiency not only saves money, but translates into carbon savings to help keep your net zero goals on track in difficult economic times.  This enables you to get ahead of  increasing environmental regulation and carbon taxation, while meeting the sustainability expectations of your customers, employees, investors and other stakeholders.

CO2 saving of 53,553 tons

Altex Group is using our IoT energy insights solution to reduce CO2 emissions by 53,553 tons, while also cutting energy costs by 8%.  Our Panoramic Power wireless sensors were used in each production facility to capture the energy consumption data of critical assets, such as air compressors, refrigeration equipment, cooling towers and evaporators.  

It was revealed that a 4% reduction in energy consumption could be achieved by using timers to switch equipment off during non-operational hours. A further 12% reduction in energy use was achieved by analysing and optimising the sequencing of compressor operation.

Reporting energy performance

By shifting to a data-driven energy monitoring strategy, users gain a clear view of carbon performance to meet  increasing regulatory and legislative oversight of Scope1, 2 and 3 emissions.

Detailed data can also be collated across multiple sites and reports downloaded for environmental and fiscal reporting, for example to assist compliance with the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) or Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) and the new Taskforce on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

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