If you don’t know precisely how, when and where energy is being used across your business, how can you understand where your energy costs really lie, or the best opportunities to improve energy and operational performance?
Working together with Centrica Business Solutions, Total Utilities is the exclusive partner delivering the Energy Insight product solution to the New Zealand market. Using Centrica’s wireless sensor technology, you can monitor energy usage in real-time – right down to device and equipment level. When this information is relayed to our PowerRadarTM analysis platform, you can access the intelligence you need to develop a data-driven energy strategy.
The Power of IoT
Our Internet of Things (IoT) technology is providing the deep energy insights that uncover flexibility and value in your operations and generation assets. This is a ‘game changer’ in raising energy performance across all types of organisations – from manufacturing and leisure – to healthcare and education.
Energy Insight technology provides full visibility of energy usage across your site, or multiple sites – right down to individual device level. We attach self-powered, wireless sensors to equipment and processes, such as conveyor belts, lighting circuits, chillers, or any other energy consuming assets.
This instantly transmits real-time data to our cloud-based PowerRadar analytics and reporting platform. You can then access this intelligence to inform your decision making and improve efficiencies.
Deep energy insights
Hundreds of sensors, which can measure both heat and power consumption, can be installed within a few hours and won’t cause disruption to operations. Data provided by our IoT technology enables organisations to quickly identify and resolve energy waste. It can also pinpoint opportunities to reduce high peak-time energy costs by moderating consumption in these periods.
The biggest gains of IoT energy insights are often seen in improved operational efficiency and business resilience. By ensuring that critical equipment is operating optimally and preventing costly disruption, or even breakdown, large operational cost savings can be achieved. Continuity of operations is also assured, which is particularly beneficial in manufacturing environments.
The results of IoT energy optimisation
We’re seeing the positive results of our IoT enabled energy optimisation across all business sectors, including Progressive Enterprises New Zealand.
Join us on Monday as we discuss how the Internet of Things is changing Energy Management and how insights can support sustainable business. Register here.
Create a sustainable energy strategy, and build a competitive advantage with powerful energy insights that provide complete visibility of your energy footprint.
Now more than ever businesses globally are looking for wastage and holding utility costs to account by requiring detailed operational reports.
As the owner of your energy strategy, it is imperative that you have end-to-end visibility of your energy footprint. Obtaining this level of visibility will provide you with energy intelligence around consumption and performance of on-site assets. These energy insights will give your business the ability to:
Understand how energy is being used across your entire footprint
Identify processes and specific devices where energy is being wasted
Manage risks and opportunities in real-time to ensure performance of assets
Manage all your data in a single energy management system
Having a centralised view of your entire energy footprint and device-level data eliminates the time and complexity involved with managing energy data in multiple platforms. A single platform that integrates with other systems creates a holistic view of your energy infrastructure that can be used to inform a single, full report.
In addition, using a single platform to manage your energy data means you always know that you’re looking at real-time, accurate intelligence. This can help you make data-driven decisions about your energy strategy that are based on the most up-to-date energy data displayed in the energy management platform.
The granular level of intelligence provided by device-level data will provide you with a deeper understanding of your energy use and help to accurately form your energy strategy. This information can be used to identify ways to future-proof your strategy to:
Improve operational efficiency
Uncover growth opportunities
Unlock new revenue streams
Identify new energy technologies
Use Energy Insights data to improve operational efficiency
Data can help your business analyse capital equipment to identify inefficiencies and determine when equipment should be replaced or requires maintenance. By keeping equipment working efficiently and performing at its optimum level, you can avoid costly downtime and reduce business risk.
Use data to uncover growth opportunities
Better energy insights can free up resources to support growth initiatives, turning energy from a commodity cost to a value-adding resource. Growth opportunities can also be achieved when your strategy successfully lowers the costs associated with energy.
Use data to unlock new revenue streams
The information gathered through end-to-end visibility can help your business leverage its energy use, flexibility and existing assets. This opportunity unlocks new revenue streams for your business by allowing you to curtail energy use or sell surplus energy back to the grid through Demand Response (DR), demand management and asset optimisation.
Use data to identify new energy technologies
End-to-end visibility of your energy footprint can help to inform decisions on using new technologies such as solar and battery storage, back-up power generation, or cogeneration (also known as Combined Heat and Power or CHP) to help drive energy optimisation and improve resilience.
The visibility of your energy footprint will grow as you adopt new technologies, but by using a centralised system to holistically monitor and manage your data, this should not add any extra complexity. In fact, your energy management system can provide you with the data you need to justify your investments in on-site energy generation.
Why businesses need to choose the right platform and provider
It is imperative that businesses partner with a provider that has the right energy insight tools and a platform that collects and centralises granular, device-level data.
Working with Total Utilities, businesses can be sure that they’ll benefit from experience and expertise. We are the New Zealand providers of Centrica’s Energy Insight solution and integrated energy management platform, PowerRadar®. These tools are generating new opportunities across all types of industry, giving organisations the ability to manage real-time, device-level energy intelligence in a single, holistic view.
Contact our experts to find out how we can help you obtain real-time visibility of your energy performance and develop a strategy that turns your energy into a competitive asset.
Making solar part of your business’s energy mix has never been more appealing. But risk and opportunity balances between an optimised design and types of PPAs.
While there’s heat in the market, there are incentives – but don’t unthinkingly sign away your business for a free set of steak knives! Or solar panels, for that matter.
According to the Electricity Authority, New Zealand’s solar energy generation capacity increased to just under 115MW in 2019.
Putting this into perspective, 115MW of installed capacity is similar to one of Contact or Mercury’s Geothermal stations. As a percentage, this equates to around 1.2% of total operating generation capacity in New Zealand.
Source: Electricity Authority
Lowering costs for installed solar
The installed cost of solar has dropped by around 75% since 2009 to an average of around $2.20 per watt. With large commercial energy rates continuing to rise, the return on investment starts to become more realistic for business customers considering solar.
Location is more important than just sunshine hours and roof direction
With 29 distribution networks in NZ, there are a variety of charging structures for time of use electricity customers. Some networks prefer to charge more for demand and capacity than on the total volume of energy consumed. Understanding how these charges are calculated is an important consideration for the ROI of solar. For example, a network price structure that favours variable charges will potentially have a far greater ROI than a price structure that favours peak demand.
Depending on the distribution network, peak demand charges can equate to a significant portion of your total electricity costs. Installing solar alone does not necessarily impact peak demands to any large degree. However as battery storage becomes more economic, this will assist customers smooth their load and reduce demand based charges.
For no money down, you too could have a solar array. Just be sure to check the fine print. And pick up your steak knives!
Power Purchase Agreements are a great way for solar companies to sell solar arrays to customers as they don’t require a customer to come up with the CAPEX costs associated with the array. There are typically two forms of PPA’s that are common in NZ.
One involves the solar company installing a meter on the array that is installed and then billing you for the energy you consume from the array at an agreed price. You can still engage with the market and import energy from a standard retailer as required. An agreement would need to be struck with your retailer for any exported energy, depending on the solar PPA, the solar company may get all the financial benefit from exported energy.
The other type is where the solar company becomes your retailer as well and manages both the import and export of power.
Sometimes the solar arrays are oversized so that the solar company can charge you for what you consume from the array and then make money selling additional energy back to the market.
This can all be used to pay off the cost of the array and there can be lease to own options or buy-out clauses after a minimum term.
In both cases, there are minimum terms from anywhere between 7 to over 20 years. Where the length of contract, maintenance and replacement clauses become important as inverters can need replacing after 10-15 years and panels at 20-25 years.
Is Solar right for my enterprise?
The first question I would be asking is:
What is the comparison between owning the array outright and the associated financing costs with benefits from the array going directly to OPEX costs from day 1 versus the costs and risks associated with a power purchase agreement?
Total Utilities has recently completed three large scale viability studies of 42kW, 96kW, 146kW, 286kW and 350kW solar arrays for commercial facilities and can assist you in determining the best solution that meets your specific requirements.
Solar companies are often constrained by the supplier of their solar products for what and how they deliver an array. Getting an independent solar viability review by Total Utilities can increase the efficiency and output of an array to ensure full value for money if you make solar part of your energy mix.
Your corporate sustainability targets might be in for a shock!
Prior to Christmas, the Government announced a raft of proposed changes to the emissions trading scheme (ETS) to rapidly decarbonise the economy.
This included lifting the ETS price cap from $25/tonne to $50/tonne and creating a market floor of $20/tonne.
If we take natural gas as an example, where at $25/tonne the ETS is priced at $1.37, at the market cap of $50/tonne this would increase the cost of the ETS to end users by $1.37/GJ (0.49c/kWh). With current raw gas pricing hovering around $9/GJ for large industrial users this could make raw gas plus ETS $11.74/GJ (4.23c/kWh).
We spend a lot of time looking at commercial electricity and energy management and that’s really something to notice! If your corporate sustainability journey does not include electricity or energy efficiency milestones, now is the time.
In addition to this, a ban on new coal-fired boilers for low and medium temperature heating has been mooted. With all coal boilers used for low temperature activities to be phased out by 2030. Coal boilers would still be allowed for high temperatures of above 300 degrees celsius.
The Interim Climate Commission estimates that switching coal boilers away to electricity or biomass at scale becomes economic when ETS costs are in the range of $60-$120/tonne.
Now more than ever businesses need to start planning their sustainability journey. At Total Utilities we are here to help.
The following was originally posted on the Centrica Business Solutions website and is reprinted with permission.
With environmental and economic sustainability at the heart of the corporate agenda, organizations face a range of risks if they fail to make progress
All organizations must pay close attention to risk. From financial viability to cyber attacks, it’s vital to understand and prepare for the forces that can disrupt the market and derail long-term sustainability – so businesses can survive in a fast-changing world.
Of all the risks that could affect a business’s long-term future, climate change is becoming one of the most urgent and complex. The United Nations warns that changing climate is disrupting national economies – and that accelerated action is needed to reduce emissions.
I want to hear about how we are going to stop the increase in emissions by 2020, and dramatically reduce emissions to reach net-zero emissions by mid-century
António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General
Many organizations are already exploring what they can do to make a difference. They know that significant organizational, reputational and financial benefits can be gained by improving their environmental credentials. That said, our Distributed Energy Future Trends report found most businesses are investing in initiatives that we’d consider to be ‘low-hanging fruit’. Few organizations are implementing the most sophisticated technological innovations that could really accelerate their journey to net zero, such as smart energy management and on-site generation. In fact, just 18% of organizations see energy as an asset to be managed, in order to generate competitive advantage.
It’s important that organizations consider the strategic benefits of implementing the latest sustainable energy innovations. But perhaps even more importantly, they also need to recognize the risks they face if they don’t implement these innovations. Here are a few of the top concerns:
Energy security
As the world moves to low-carbon energy sources, making sure that you have continuity of supply is vital. Business leaders acknowledge the importance of energy resilience, which is why they rank energy security as being a top-three risk to their operations.
It’s important to have a detailed energy strategy, one that puts targets around energy resilience. Currently, only half of businesses that we’d consider to be ‘sustainable’ have an energy strategy that details how they will become a low-carbon organization. With other businesses, the figure falls to just 24%. Clearly, there is scope for businesses to push ahead in this area.
Having a plan is just the first step, though. It’s also important to consider implementing sustainable energy innovations, which can help to reduce reliance on the grid and provide additional security in the event of a power failure. Without harnessing the latest innovations, organizations may not be safeguarding themselves as fully as they could against the catastrophic consequences of power loss.
Innovation is good for business
In today’s economy, no company can afford to stand still. It’s important to keep moving forward and improve the products and services you deliver to your customers. Continuous innovation is good for business and often creates new opportunities that can enhance the way your business operates.
This is certainly true of sustainable energy innovations. From artificial intelligence to digitalized energy management solutions – low-carbon technologies can create new opportunities for businesses to monetize their power assets and improve their brand reputation. What’s more, organizations that look at their strategy anew and consider how they can join their energy technologies together can maximize their commercial benefits and return on investment. It’s clear that organizations who embrace sustainable energy innovations can gain competitive advantage – and those businesses that fail to harness these new opportunities risk being left behind.
Preparing for a more digital world
Organizations that aggressively pursue digitalization are expected to grow the most in the next five years. But companies that are truly future-focused don’t just introduce new digital platforms and technologies on a whim – they consider their wider implications, including the energy requirements of each digitalization initiative.
In our transformed world, new strategies are required to understand precisely where, how and when energy is being used across your organization. By monitoring, managing and aggregating all available energy assets, including energy demand and usage, organizations can ensure they generate and consume power in the most efficient way.
The latest sustainable energy innovations can support this initiative by providing organizations with the insight they need to make more intelligent decisions about their energy strategy in a digital world. But organizations that don’t embrace these innovations may lack these insights and could run the risk of wasting energy and money. And this may snowball, as more and more digital technologies are embraced.
Futureproofing your operations
Businesses that clearly define their energy strategy and invest in the latest sustainable energy innovations will find themselves in the best position to meet their environmental targets, gain competitive advantage, and futureproof their operations. Companies that do not embrace the latest energy technologies may find themselves at a disadvantage in a competitive market.
With businesses maturing at different paces, it will take strategic planning to accelerate environmental and sustainability ambitions. Contact Total Utilities to see how we can help you invest in sustainable energy innovations that will solve business challenges and deliver tangible results.
Research shows that using low-carbon energy solutions can improve your reputation – helping make the case for sustainable energy innovation.
Deloitte recently published The Global Millennial Survey. This reinforced a number of other surveys that concluded that brands with a strong corporate social responsibly and sustainability plan will attract a higher caliber pool of prospective employees and a large range of engaged customers.
42% of those surveyed stated that they would start and or deepen a relationship with business who has products/services that positively impact the environment/society whereas 38% said they would cease or reduce their relationship with businesses who has products that negatively impacted the environment/society.
In business, it’s often said that reputation is slowly built, but quickly lost. That’s why, as a successful company, it’s vital to take a strategic view of your brand – to avoid the damage that can result from being on the wrong side of fast-moving public debates.
The below was recently posted by Centrica Business Solutions and is republished with permission.
Globally, there are few issues being currently debated more than the environment and climate change. In response, many organizations are looking to implement technical low-carbon energy innovations – including solar power or electric vehicles – as well as less tangible innovations, such as reshaping business strategies to more closely reflect environmental concerns.
When you’re considering investing in any of these approaches, it’s vital to understand the wider implications they may have on your business – both positive and negative.
In particular, it’s clear they can have a significant impact on how your brand is perceived by customers and shareholders. Our recent report, Distributed Energy Future Trends, shows that decision-makers recognize that low-carbon energy solutions result in reputational benefits for businesses.
According to our research, as many as 30% of companies we surveyed say that investing in energy technology results directly in a better company reputation – up from 24% in 2017. That’s a big rise in just two years and shows that energy technology, an increase in environmental responsibilities as an organizational priority, and brand perception are closely linked.
Strategy linked to brand
In the past year alone, 36% of the businesses we surveyed changed their brand position to be more environmentally friendly. This shows they understand the importance of demonstrating sustainability credentials.
Of course, to be effective in the long term, any change in brand positioning should be genuine. Customers, employees, commentators and regulators are all rightly suspicious of brands making unsubstantiated or misleading claims about their environmental friendliness, and their perception of your brand may be different from the crafted positions you take.
This means that, ideally, the drive toward sustainability should be strategic – with a combination of economic and environmental drivers the focus for success. Our survey shows that 86% of companies think ‘sustainability’ has both economic and environmental dimensions. It’s clear that organizations cannot simply talk about the importance of environmental responsibility – their words need to be backed up by clear and decisive action.
There are signs that this is happening. In fact, social and environmental responsibility is steadily rising up the strategic corporate agenda, and our research found that the only two factors are considered more important: efficiency and financial performance. What’s more, the fourth most important item on the corporate agenda was reported to be compliance with legislation and regulation – which is, in itself, a critical part of reputation management.
Practical impacts on stakeholders
There are a wide number of ways in which sustainable energy innovations can enhance your brand perception, and these are largely dependent on the strategy you opt for.
Invest in sustainable transportation technologies, such as workplace charging points and an electric vehicle fleet, and this could start to have positive impacts not only on employees who use them, but on the local community too. Already, half of fleet owners have at least one electric or hybrid vehicle, our research shows.
Solar technologies, too, can be a visible demonstration of your environmental commitment, and can combine with battery storage for economic and resiliency benefits too. Rather than relying on traditional energy sources, you’re able to generate your own energy onsite, store this generated energy in a battery for use during times of high grid demand or grid interruptions, and may even increase profitability by reducing expenses.
Innovative energy technologies can improve brand perceptions in indirect ways, as well. According to our research, the issue of energy security and resilience is now a top four risk for companies. It’s easy to see how a power failure at a critical site or data center could cause damage to your brand. Yet solutions such as battery storage and backup generators could mitigate these issues as part of a sustainable energy strategy. This will keep you ‘always on’ and safeguarded from commercial, regulatory and market risks.
Organizations with strong future growth prospects are those that have a clear strategy for how energy can contribute to their company values. In fact, one-third of organizations who expect their annual revenue to grow by over 20% in the next five years have made a clear link between sustainable energy use and their brand image and company values.
Find out more about how Total Utilities can help you invest in sustainable energy innovations that can have a positive impact on your organisational competitiveness, environmental credentials, brand perception, and carbon emissions.
