Has your organisation invested in commercial solar panels, or are you considering deploying solar power? If so, you might be looking for ways to maximise your return on investment (ROI).
In today’s challenging business environment, adapting your energy strategy is crucial. Objective tracking of your assets’ cost and performance is becoming increasingly important. Without this data, you could face additional pressure on your bottom line, complicating your budget amid rising costs.
The Power of Panoramic Power
Panoramic Power’s end-to-end energy management and intelligence platform can help you clarify your energy picture. The benefits of real-time data start from the very beginning of your solar system’s lifetime. Panoramic Power can help you track your organisation’s electricity demand and energy costs. With real-time alerts and reporting, you’ll be able to view energy usage for your entire site. This can help you identify opportunities to cut wastage and reduce your total energy demand.
Lowering Usage and Reducing Costs
Lowering your energy usage means drawing less energy from the grid. This allows you to meet more of your total demand via your solar system, providing more stable prices and accurate forecasts. If you invested via capital sale, this could even help reduce your solar system’s payback period.
If you haven’t invested in solar power yet, tracking your energy usage can still benefit your business. Reduced usage means you’ll need a smaller system, with a 25% reduction resulting in a roughly 25% smaller solar system. This can lower your upfront costs and free up your budget for other investments.
Achieving Energy Efficiency
Energy efficiency is a priority for many organisations. For some, energy monitoring can deliver quick wins and effective short-term savings. However, progress can stall without a more granular view of energy usage and cost.
With device-level insights, you can track exactly how much energy you’re using and where. Panoramic Power provides a detailed view of where and when you could reduce your energy usage. By uncovering opportunities to cut back on wastage, you can ensure that you’re only using the energy you really need.
Transforming Your Energy Strategy
Pairing energy monitoring with commercial solar power can transform your energy strategy, offering dual benefits. Bringing your energy generation onsite reduces your reliance on grid supply, shielding you from volatile electricity prices. By tracking your energy demand, you’ll know you’re paying the right price for the right amount of electricity.
In conclusion, data-driven energy monitoring and insights can help you maximise your ROI in commercial solar power. By collecting, analysing, and acting on data-driven insights, you can bridge the gap between commitments and implementation, achieve your energy goals, and build a more sustainable future.
How Total Utilities Can Help
Our expert team can help you unlock significant energy savings with a short-term return on investment (ROI). Typically, we can identify up to 25% savings with an ROI of less than 2 years.
We offer the easiest-to-install, and fastest for ROI energy management solution, that scales effortlessly from a few devices to full-site or multi-site operations. Experience actionable insights and real-time analytics that drive efficiency and sustainability. Our solutions work for everyone, helping your organisation kickstart cultural transformation towards a sustainable future.
Total Utilities partners with Kristin School to provide real-time monitoring of solar panel performance with our world-class energy monitoring solution. Read their story here.
Hidden inefficiencies are draining your profits and hindering your sustainability goals.
We’re not talking about dramatic equipment failures that halt production. Instead, we’re exposing invisible efficiency killers—machines that appear fully operational while steadily eroding your bottom line and inflating your carbon emissions. The culprits are your most commonplace industrial machines: boilers, hot water systems, compressors, lighting, HVAC and refrigeration systems.
Every unit of wasted energy means lost money and unnecessary emissions. As New Zealand businesses face mounting pressure due to escalating energy prices, for executives tasked with controlling costs, Panoramic Power represents a transformative ally.
The Invisible Problem: Why Inefficiencies Go Unnoticed
Many inefficiencies remain hidden because you can’t fix what you can’t see. Machines that appear operational can quietly drain profits and inflate emissions. Without advanced energy monitoring, these “silent thieves” stay undetected, eroding both financial performance and sustainability credentials.
Total Utilities provides a simple, cost-effective way to identify quick wins and the real-time visibility needed to expose these invisible efficiency leaks, equipping businesses with actionable insights to transform waste into measurable gains.
Excessive Steam Discharge: Can account for up to 30% of energy waste.
Scale Buildup: A 1mm layer can increase fuel consumption by 2–5%.
Faulty Controls: Malfunctioning thermostats or regulators increase inefficiencies.
Real-life example: A Panoramic Power client identified that 30% of their steam was wasted. Real-time insights enabled targeted fixes, reducing gas usage and emissions.
Sediment Accumulation: Reduces heat transfer, requiring more energy.
Corrosion and Leaks: Often unnoticed until damage is extensive.
Real-life example: Monitoring revealed a pump running four times faster than needed. Adjustments led to significant energy and cost savings.
Compressed Air: The Hidden Energy Monster
Air Leaks: Drain 20–30% of output.
Short-Cycling: Misaligned systems disrupt efficiency.
Improper Pressure Settings: Cause waste and operational disruptions.
Real-life example: A bottling plant reduced compressor pressure from 100 PSI to 96 PSI, saving energy and reducing wear without affecting production.
HVAC Systems: The Silent Energy Drainers
Unbalanced Airflow: Causes some areas to overheat or over cool, wasting energy.
Dirty Filters: Reduce efficiency and increase energy consumption.
Faulty Thermostats: Lead to inconsistent temperatures and energy waste.
Real-life example: A client discovered that their HVAC system ran 24/7 due to a faulty thermostat. Fixing it saved significant energy and reduced costs.
Lighting Systems: The Overlooked Energy Consumers
Outdated Bulbs: Older lighting technology consumes more energy.
Improper Scheduling: Lights left on when not needed.
Inefficient Fixtures: Poorly designed fixtures waste light and energy.
Real-life example: A warehouse switched to LED lighting and implemented motion sensors, cutting their lighting energy use by 40%.
Refrigeration Units: The Hidden Cold Costs
Door Seals: Worn seals allow cold air to escape, increasing energy use.
Defrost Cycles: Inefficient cycles waste energy.
Temperature Settings: Incorrect settings lead to higher energy consumption.
Real-life example: A food processing plant adjusted its defrost cycles and repaired door seals, resulting in a 15% reduction in energy use.
Total Utilities leverages Panoramic Power to turn hidden inefficiencies into measurable improvements. Using real-time monitoring, predictive analytics, and customised dashboards, the platform:
Identifies inefficiencies across machines and systems.
Provides actionable insights to reduce energy waste.
This integration of visibility and intelligence empowers manufacturers to cut costs, lower emissions, and enhance competitiveness.
Why Panoramic Power Stands Out
Unlike generic energy monitoring tools, Panoramic Power aligns with executive priorities by translating data into strategic opportunities. The platform simplifies:
Inefficiency detection: Identify hidden energy drains.
Data customisation: Tailor dashboards to operational needs.
By addressing both cost savings and environmental impact, Panoramic Power helps users achieve measurable results and lead in sustainable innovation.
How Total Utilities Can Help
Our expert team can help you unlock significant energy savings with a short-term return on investment (ROI). Typically, we can identify up to 25% savings with an ROI of less than 2 years.
We achieve this by conducting a comprehensive site-wide energy audit (Type 1), examining everything from lighting and HVAC systems to chillers, boilers, refrigeration and other energy-intensive systems. Additionally, we install Panoramic Power our non-intrusive energy intelligence system, providing real-time device-level energy data visibility. For more information check out a brief overview of our service here.
Ready to start saving? Contact us today to schedule your energy audit and begin your journey towards greater efficiency and cost savings!
In today’s business landscape, whether your priority is energy efficiency, cost reduction, or sustainability, a successful long-term strategy relies on a degree of certainty about the future. When market conditions are volatile, a rigorous approach to data becomes more crucial than ever. Long-term uncertainty makes it challenging to plan and even harder to sell sustainability strategies within the wider business. However, a data-driven approach provides businesses with something tangible to build on.
The Role of Data and Analytics
For those looking to manage energy more effectively, data and analytics often focus on consumption, carbon emissions, and cost. Establishing baselines for all data sets and systematically tracking them as you make operational changes or implement new technologies is essential. This approach ensures you know what’s working, what isn’t, and why.
Addressing Energy Costs in New Zealand
With increasing pressure to control energy costs due to systemic market constraints in New Zealand, businesses must find ways to reduce energy usage. Simply absorbing costs is not a viable option. Understanding where your energy is going is crucial. By identifying operational inefficiencies, you can discover where savings can be made, helping you make smarter decisions.
Leveraging Real-Time Energy Intelligence
Combining self-powered, wireless sensors with real-time energy intelligence software provides the overview you need and allows you to analyse data to develop a data-driven strategy for the future. This approach can help mitigate costly downtime, reduce waste, enhance agility, and boost productivity.
Benefits Across Various Industries
Using end-to-end energy management tools to build energy intelligence offers benefits for various industries, types of operations, and facilities:
Industrial Manufacturers: Avoid equipment downtime by predicting failures, maximise energy savings, detect operational inefficiencies, and optimise overall equipment effectiveness. Typical results include reducing maintenance costs by 60%, equipment downtime by 50%, and equipment capital investment by 3-5% by extending the useful life of machinery.
Multi-Site Retail and Grocery Stores: Cut costs by reducing energy waste, optimise equipment and maintenance, enhance brand reputation through sustainability, and monitor the entire operation from one dashboard. Typical results include eliminating 30% excess energy consumption and a 10% reduction in energy costs, boosting net profit margins by up to 16%.
Commercial Buildings and Business Campuses: Predict failures and operational anomalies through real-time alerts, reduce energy waste, measure retrofit effectiveness, and continuously improve operational effectiveness. Typical results include cutting equipment maintenance costs by 40% and extending equipment lifetimes.
Panoramic Power: Your All-in-One Energy Intelligence Solution
Our expert team can help you unlock significant energy savings with a short-term return on investment (ROI). Typically, we can identify up to 25% savings with an ROI of less than 2 years.
We offer the easiest-to-install, and fastest for ROI energy management solution, that scales effortlessly from a few devices to full-site or multi-site operations. Experience actionable insights and real-time analytics that drive efficiency and sustainability. Our solutions work for everyone, helping your organisation kickstart cultural transformation towards a sustainable future.
Manufacturers can maximise energy and operational efficiency by leveraging the Panoramic Power end-to-end energy intelligence platform. This platform combines wireless sensor technology with advanced analytics software to provide real-time energy insights, enabling optimisation of energy and operational performance across an entire site, down to the device and equipment level.
Real-time energy data at your fingertips
By simply clipping wireless IoT sensors to energy-intensive assets at a circuit level, the captured data is analysed and visualised using an advanced energy management platform. This provides a 360-degree view of site-wide power usage at the required level of detail. Additionally, it is possible to monitor gas, heat, air flow, and water consumption, as well as on-site generators like solar systems.
Six Ways Smart Sensors Can Drive Manufacturing Efficiency Savings
1. Detect Energy Waste to Drive Efficiency and Cost Savings
By understanding what’s happening beyond metered data at a device and process level, hidden energy waste can be identified, driving efficiency improvements that can reduce skyrocketing bills. For example, unnecessary out-of-hours consumption, idling equipment, incorrect operation timetables, or opportunities to improve compressor cycling or production/process line sequencing can be detected. Benchmarking against other comparable sites or areas can also help detect anomalies and drive best practices. IoT energy insights can further inform and influence employee behaviour change to improve energy performance.
2. Improve Operational Efficiency
With on-demand access to real-time equipment and process performance data, new insights into operational improvement opportunities can be gained. Often, the resulting operational cost savings are higher than the energy savings. For instance, energy insights can detect air leaks from compressors and diagnose performance issues with cooling equipment or production lines. The technology can support the verification of manufacturer default settings and equipment controls, while also tracking operational trends from adjusting equipment controls in real-time.
3. Predict Equipment Failure and Trigger Maintenance Protocols
Energy analytics software can detect anomalies and faulty equipment or process vulnerabilities that could affect output or product quality. Smart technology facilitates the transition from scheduled maintenance to predictive maintenance by providing 24/7 alerts about potential issues, preventing them before they become points of failure. This reduces downtime, increases productivity, and extends asset life.
4. Decarbonise Your Business
Improving energy and operational efficiency also delivers carbon savings, helping achieve net zero ambitions cost-effectively. This allows manufacturers to stay ahead of increasing environmental regulation and carbon taxation while meeting the sustainability expectations of customers, employees, investors, and other stakeholders.
5. Make Compliance & Reporting Easy
A data-driven energy monitoring strategy provides a clear view of energy and carbon performance. Accurate data is available at the required level of detail to support increasing regulatory and legislative oversight of Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions. Device-level data also allows quantification of the energy or carbon intensity of production, such as how many kWh or t/CO2-e it takes to produce one widget. Similarly, if upgrading process heat requirements to heat pumps, device-level data can verify the carbon reduction impact of these upgrades.
6. Optimise and Monetise Energy Flexibility
Data gathered from wireless sensors can inform opportunities to use energy flexibly for cost reduction and revenue generation. By shifting loads to avoid peak time power costs, significant savings can be achieved by moving non-essential loads out of peak hours.
By implementing these strategies, manufacturers can significantly enhance their energy and operational efficiency, leading to substantial cost savings and improved sustainability.
How Total Utilities Can Help
Our expert team can help you unlock significant energy savings with a short-term return on investment (ROI). Typically, we can identify up to 25% savings with an ROI of less than 2 years.
We achieve this by conducting a comprehensive site-wide energy audit (Type 1), examining everything from lighting and HVAC systems to chillers, boilers, refrigeration and other energy-intensive systems. Additionally, we install Panoramic Power our non-intrusive energy intelligence system, providing real-time device-level energy data visibility. For more information check out a brief overview of our service here.
Ready to start saving? Contact us today to schedule your energy audit and begin your journey towards greater efficiency and cost savings!
In the past three to five years, legislative changes have prompted many New Zealand businesses to evaluate their contributions towards the country’s net carbon zero targets. Despite their commitment to sustainability and reducing CO2 emissions, many companies find themselves stuck at the implementation stage due to a lack of necessary data.
The Importance of Data in Sustainability
The journey towards sustainability is fundamentally dependent on data. Data is crucial, from setting decarbonisation goals to determining the actions needed to achieve those goals and monitoring progress. Most sustainability projects involve significant investments in onsite energy generation, transitioning to renewable energy sources, diversifying the energy mix, or investing in more efficient machinery.
Granular data collected at the machine, process, and facility levels empowers decision-makers to justify their investments and confidently implement sustainability initiatives.
Establishing Baselines and Monitoring Progress
Once an investment decision is made, organisations need to establish baselines and monitor progress. Highly accurate IoT devices can measure energy use and emissions across critical machinery, creating a baseline for tracking progress and identifying areas for improvement. Monitoring energy consumption, operational efficiency, and emission levels allows organisations to set realistic, data-backed sustainability targets, monitor initiatives over time, and collect the data needed to meet reporting obligations.
Case Study: The Power of Data in Action
A national retail chain, a client of Total Utilities, demonstrates the power of data in action. The Panoramic Power Energy Intelligence solution helped identify out-of-hours energy waste equivalent to 51,000kg of Scope 2 CO2 emissions. By using Panoramic Power sensors to measure the energy consumption of their HVAC system, they identified an opportunity to optimise these assets during non-operational hours, achieving $105,000 per year in total energy cost savings.
Criteria for Effective Data Utilisation
For data to successfully drive sustainability initiatives forward, it must meet the following criteria:
Generate Insights: Organisations striving for net zero need more than just raw data; they need actionable insights. A robust data tool is required to generate these insights, allowing key stakeholders to visualise the full energy picture, identify sources of waste, and determine where interventions will have the most significant economic and environmental impact.
Be Readily Shareable: Companies worldwide often suffer from data silos, where relevant data does not reach those who need it for daily operations. A data tool that facilitates easy sharing across departments and stakeholders empowers both site and management levels to carry out their tasks efficiently and accurately.
Ease Reporting Obligations: Organisations face increasing pressure to collect and maintain accurate emissions and resource consumption data and report on decarbonisation efforts. A data-driven energy monitoring strategy provides a clear view of energy and carbon performance and generates detailed reports required for regulatory and legislative compliance with Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions.
Harness Energy Intelligence and Boost Your Sustainability Initiatives
When organisations have confidence in their data, they can better manage their energy use. Data will be the cornerstone of successful sustainability journeys going forward. By collecting, analysing, and acting on data-driven insights, manufacturing organisations can bridge the gap between commitments and implementation, achieve net-zero goals, and build a more sustainable future.
How Total Utilities Can Help
Our expert team can help you unlock significant energy savings with a short-term return on investment (ROI). Typically, we can identify up to 25% savings with an ROI of less than 2 years.
We offer the easiest-to-install, and fastest for ROI energy management solution, that scales effortlessly from a few devices to full-site or multi-site operations. Experience actionable insights and real-time analytics that drive efficiency and sustainability. Our solutions work for everyone, helping your organisation kickstart cultural transformation towards a sustainable future.
We’re delighted to welcome Dave Booker to the Total Utilities team as our new Process Improvement Engineer. His expertise will undoubtedly enhance our commitment to delivering exceptional service.
Dave brings decades of experience from industries like pulp, paper and steel, where he’s known for his hands-on approach to solving complex technical problems.
His background in troubleshooting and strategic process improvements makes him the perfect fit for our goal of delivering smarter, more efficient energy solutions.
At Total Utilities, Dave will focus on optimising our Panoramic Power energy monitoring and intelligence platform, a key tool in tracking energy consumption for our clients.
His job? To make sure the data captured by these units doesn’t just sit in spreadsheets but becomes a powerful tool to cut costs and improve efficiency.
Turning Data into Action
“It’s not just about collecting data,” Dave says, “It’s about transforming that data into insights that show clients exactly where they can reduce energy and put their resources to best use.”
With rising power prices and operational costs becoming a major concern for businesses, Dave’s role is more crucial than ever. “What we’re aiming for is visibility,” he adds. “We want to give clients a clear understanding of how their systems are performing, where inefficiencies lie, and what can be done about them—before small issues turn into costly problems.”
By analysing mechanical performance and predicting failures before they happen, Dave is confident that his work with Panoramic Power will not only prevent breakdowns but also boost long-term sustainability and operational savings.
His practical, methodical approach to problem-solving has been honed through years of experience. His previous roles as a Process Engineer and Technical Superintendent have sharpened his ability to instinctively find solutions, often before the problem fully reveals itself.
Driving Efficiency, Cutting Costs
Whether it’s transforming raw energy data into useful information or strategically planning capital investments, Dave is always looking for ways to get more with less, ensuring that any investment in technology delivers real, tangible results.
When he’s not busy turning data into action, he’s a keen Harley Davidson enthusiast and also enjoys turning his hand to home improvements.
We welcome Dave to the team, and look forward to seeing the impact he will make as he applies his expertise to help our clients navigate the challenges of rising operational costs and energy consumption.
Ready to optimise your energy usage and cut operational costs? Connect with Dave and the team today to discover how our data-driven solutions can work for you.
