U.S. supermarket sees value in energy efficiency
OutSmart used its monitoring and data analytics programs to help an unnamed regional supermarket chain with more than 800 stores located across the U.S. reach energy efficiency and renewable energy targets. This customer was willing to use data and analytics to identify opportunities for improvement in its supermarkets portfolio, and turned to OutSmart to provide the resources necessary to do so.
A previous attempt on data analytics
The client had previously deployed a one-meter-per-store monitoring program. Given the manner in which energy consumption changes with external temperature, hour of the day, day of week and month of year, a single meter solution lacked the ability to detect the difference between a problem and a changing store environment, according to an OutSmart case study. Most importantly, a single meter solution could not identify root cause of energy consumption changes. This approach did not reduced the number of truck-rolls or man-hours required to find and resolve issues.
The solution, and better results
The client deployed OutSmart’s wire-level monitoring and analytics program to gain visibility into their stores’ energy consumption patterns
According to OutSmart, the store was then able to pinpoint:
- Location of the problem
- Time the problem occurred (and was corrected)
- Cost of the problem condition
In 60 days, OutSmart installed an energy monitoring system in 50 stores, covering 60 critical loads per store. This system provided insight into store refrigeration, HVAC and lighting systems. Data began streaming into the OutSmart Analytics Platform (OSAP) the day of installation and actionable output followed immediately.
After nine months, over 600 significant, specific and actionable opportunities for energy savings were identified by OutSmart’s software platform and analytics team, according to the monitoring company. The aggregate annual savings potential represented by the data analytics was more than 300% of the client’s target for the OutSmart program, and the program demonstrated a payback of around one year. The opportunities were converted to savings, and allowed maintenance staff to be deployed in a very targeted and cost effective manner to make necessary changes.
The OutSmart analysis was also used to identify possible customer experience, food safety and regulatory issues. During the first month a total of 50 of these issues were reported to the customer.
The customer is expanding the OutSmart system in its portfolio, using it not only reduce energy consumption, but to also capture detailed information on equipment performance, and as an input to the capital planning process. Total energy savings during the first year of use reached over 12,000,000 kWh.
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