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 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.
As renters and homeowners in the 1970s and 80s we were accustomed to hot water cylinder ‘ripple control’ – the mechanism whereby power companies assured us of a cold shower when we got home from work.
The trade-off was that households were able to operate stoves, lights and televisions without power cuts. Then along came the Clyde Dam and all this went away.
Until now.
If we take all our light vehicles off the road and replace them with EVs, this would increase our electricity demand by 20% (EECA Nov 2022). Add to this new ‘green’ data centres built by Google, Microsoft, AWS and our own IT companies, and this will likely add a further 10% to our current electricity needs. Our already stretched electricity supply infrastructure simply won’t cope.
The Energy Trilemma is defined as the need to find balance between energy reliability, affordability, and sustainability and its impact on everyday lives.
Understanding the challenges to balancing these three core elements is vital to keeping the lights on, the economy operating and achieving goals such as Net Zero carbon emissions.
Energy Reliability
The energy system aimed at ensuring reliability in New Zealand is made up of three interconnected parts:
Generation which comes mainly from the dams in South Island Lakes.
Transmission – Transpower’s multibillion dollar electricity supply backbone, built mainly in the 1950s and 1980s on 30,000 properties, with 25,000 transmission towers supporting 11,000 kms of lines and their essential 170 substations.
Distribution – Delivering electricity to homes and businesses via 27 regional Lines Companies, most of whom are locally owned. These companies own the power poles, lines and transformers that bring electricity to our door.
These three elements are highly regulated and involve investments in assets worth billions of dollars.
Our whole energy system is funded by debt that must be paid for by current and future generations.
Who pays and when is the big issue here. Is it today’s user, their children or their children’s children?
This is called intergenerational debt servicing and presents huge challenges when deciding the fairest way to distribute the cost of assets that in some instances might have a useful life of fifty years or more – or in the case of dams much longer than that.
To make things worse, an emerging issue with these investments is the risk of what is known as ‘stranded assets.’ This happens when transformational technologies such as solar and wind based distributed energy systems makes further investment in centralised dams, transmission and distribution uneconomic. When this happens the debt remains but the ability to pay by leveraging (charging for) existing or new assets is reduced or disappears completely.
Affordability and Equity
The New Zealand economy is reliant on agriculture which in turn is reliant on energy. However, economic theory suggests that on a ‘user pays’ basis, a farmer in a remote location should pay more than an apartment dweller in a big city or town. After all it is, at first glance, far cheaper to provide an urban dweller power than it is to run kilometres of copper wire to a small number of farms down a rural highway.
Recent changes to the way costs are allocated for Transpower’s transmission backbone came up with the proposition that the further you are from the source of the power (the lakes) the more you pay because you accrue greater benefit.
This means that a dairy farmer in Northland pays much, much more for connection to the grid than a Southland farmer producing the same products with the same amount of electricity. It conveniently ignores the fact that three quarters of the population of New Zealand is in the North Island and therefore paid for at least this proportion of the massive costs of building our generation and transmission infrastructure in the first place.
Taking this economic puffery to its logical extreme we should be seeing city lines companies like Vector punishing those who are not living in the inner city by charging more for connections to their homes. Thank heavens for the Elected Trustee model that makes this kind of logic totally politically untenable.
While the Trust model provides a level of protection from purist economists, unelected energy officials aren’t as susceptible to the wrath of the voters.
Our government market regulator, the Commerce Commission, doesn’t even have an affordability or equity objective when addressing the electricity market. Instead, it’s ‘Right investments, Right Time at the right cost.’
What about doing ‘right’ by the rural communities generating enough food for 40 million people globally and generating exports in excess of $72 billion annually?
Sustainability
Electricity generated by gas fields, coal and oil fired power stations is expensive, carbon emitting and directly impacts the wholesale market price of electricity.
Over the past decade or so we have seen a steady decrease in their contribution to the country’s generation capacity as generators have switched off coal and gas fired capacity. A government ban on further oil and gas exploration and the rapid decline in our existing gas resources in and around Taranaki has placed even more pressure on our electricity supply.
The net result, as demand threatens to exceed supply, is that wholesale and forward prices are at record levels now and well into the future.
One answer to this supply issue might be Lake Onslow – pumped hydro – essentially a $17 billion, ten year project to deliver a giant hydro powered battery designed to help protect against hydro shortages.
Adding 1200 megawatts capacity (roughly an eighth of the country’s current peak capacity) would potentially help bring the volatile wholesale market for electricity back to some semblance of normality.
The Government has just made a decision to complete a $70 million business case on Lake Onslow. Add to that the $30 million they have already spent and it looks like this decision will be a major electricity industry inflexion point.
It’s difficult to see the GenTailers detaching themselves from the status quo and its associated super profits. As such it has been no surprise at all to see them aggressively highlight research from reports that paint the Onslow Project as an expensive and impractical idea.
What I have failed to see is any practical alternative being offered – other than the monopolists’ favourite – punishing vulnerable consumers into changing their behaviour by raising prices at peak time. This is not a great option when young consumers are juggling hungry children, bath times, winter heating bills and brutal mortgage interest rates, and dairy farmers have cattle lined up outside the sheds for milking.
Barring the embedded carbon costs of construction materials like steel and concrete, Onslow offers a sustainable opportunity to enhance the viability of inconsistent generation sources such as solar, wind and tidal generation. By providing a massive hydro based battery to store load as and when it is created, we could see wholesale prices back in the 8-12 cents per kw.
This would see the benefits of lower input costs flowing to farms, businesses and households instead of into the pockets of the gentailers and governments eager to feed off the dividends their super profits are providing.
Part three of this series will address that most controversial of subjects – Water, Waste and Stormwater. Call it Three Waters if you like. I call it a right mess.
Ever felt ripped off after being served up a beer with more head than you can shake a stick at? Then take a moment to consider how power wastage from your business’ equipment is as useless as the froth on your over-fizzed brew.
But what on earth has power factor got to do with beer I hear you say? And more importantly, what even is it?
Power factor in a nutshell… or a pint glass
Power factor is basically a measure of how efficiently your business sites use power supplied by your network distributor. Poor power factor = poor power efficiency and increased charges.
But for a more detailed, um, ‘scientific’ explanation, let’s get back to that beer:
Beer = active power (kW) – the useful power, or the liquid beer is the energy doing the good work.
Foam = reactive power (kVAR). This is wasted or lost power. It’s the energy being produced that isn’t doing any work and is annoyingly inefficient.
The mug = apparent power (kVA). This is the demand power, or the power being delivered by the utility.
So, the more ‘foam’ on your power factor, the more power wastage and the higher your inefficiency. Poor power factor is bad news for your business, your carbon footprint, and the environment.
Power factor is expressed as a percentage – the lower the percentage, the less efficient your power usage.
For example, equipment with a power factor of 1 is using all the power supplied to it. Big tick. Generally, a power factor of 0.8 or above is considered good.
However, if your power factor is lower than 0.8, it should be corrected to save on consumption and comply with the requirements of the electricity network operator.
Paying hand over fist for power
Total Utilities Director Chris Hargreaves explains, “Your power supplier provides electricity to meet your demands. Therefore, if your apparent power needs are high in order to compensate for poor power factor, you – the customer – will end up paying through the nose for it.
“For some larger customers, power suppliers might even take the largest peak and apply it across the full billing period. So you’re paying a very high price indeed for that froth on your beer!
“Poor power factor can also cost your business through direct penalty charges applied by many electricity distributors in New Zealand. This combined with charges for apparent rather than actual power can result in sky-high utility bills – particularly in this current climate where the cost of power is going through the roof.
“Conversely, by reducing the amount of energy your site requires at any one time, you reduce demand and the cost of supplying energy to your site.”
So, how do I get a handle on my business’ power factor?
Before you start to tackle a power factor problem, it’s important to get a measure of how efficient your current equipment actually is.
Total Utilities provides power factor audits – complete health checks of the overall quality of your electrical network. Our power factor audits identify problem areas and suggest opportunities for improvement in order to maximise your energy savings, mitigate faults and increase system reliability and efficiency.
Total Utilities can save you money with power factor correction
If a problem is identified during our audit, installing power factor correction is a great option to reduce your demand charges.
Total Utilities works with Rotorua based power factor correction specialists KVAr Correct, to provide complete, custom, and ready-to-go power factor correction solutions, plus ongoing monitoring and maintenance. These modular systems are custom designed to meet each customer’s need, ensuring the best return and no wasted capacity.
So, if you’re looking to reduce costs and increase energy efficiency (and let’s face it, who isn’t?), maybe now’s the time to look into your power factor? Use less. Pay less. Reduce your carbon footprint.
It’s a win-win for your business, your bottom line and the planet.
Contact Total Utilities to find out more about our power factor audits, services and solutions.
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With prevailing energy market conditions causing sharp price hikes that show no signs of abating – what can you do and who do you turn to for advice and viable solutions?
Since the beginning of 2021, negotiated contract pricing for large commercial customers has increased from 11c/kWh to 18c/kWh for a three year period. This means a customer using one million kWh per year is paying $70,000 more for electricity per year than 19 months ago.
Mass market customers have not been impacted to the same degree with pricing moving from 9c/kWh to 12.5c/kWh.
Rather than bore you with the (too numerous) details and interrelated factors that have caused this unwelcome turn of events, let’s explore the options open to businesses to mitigate sky high energy costs.
Time to turn to the experts? Many businesses are turning to energy management consultancies to help them navigate the challenging energy markets and provide services to assist them to get the very best deal on their utilities.
They are also hiring consultants to explore sustainable and renewable energy options to help them diversify their energy portfolio and give them maximum bang for their buck in terms of energy efficiency, pricing and carbon liabilities.
But according to Total Utilities Director Chris Hargreaves, it’s a case of ‘buyer beware,’ when it comes to hiring an energy management consultancy. He says the quality of service and outcomes vary dramatically.
“If it was my business, there are only a small handful of organisations I would consider using in New Zealand to obtain energy contracts on my behalf and to have the ability and insight required to properly explore efficiency and sustainable solutions.
“The consultancy industry for energy is not regulated, so effectively anyone can start up a business that offers procurement services,” he says.
Chris advises considering various factors before hiring a consultant, including how many procurements they conduct each year. The energy market is highly dynamic and energy retailers are entering and leaving the market at unprecedented rates and pricing models and practices are changing daily.
If the consultant or advisor you are using is not pricing in the market on a regular basis, then you are likely to get caught out by the market changes. Look for companies conducting over 100 procurement exercises per year (as an example, we average almost 350).
You should also establish whether your consultant reviews the entire market of energy retailers for pricing (we do), or just their favoured few companies (nope, not us).
Also, does your advisor or consultant gather detailed market intelligence to track wholesale pricing and industry developments? Do they warn you of potential ‘gotcha’ clauses to look out for in energy contracts as part of their procurement process? Needless to say, Total Utilities ticks all these boxes.
Aside from engaging a reputable energy management consultancy to help you traverse choppy utility waters, Chris explains there are various ways to hedge against rising costs, to minimise budgetary risk and ensure you comply with regulatory requirements.
Cost saving starts with sustainability & efficiency He says that first and foremost, now is the time to explore efficiency, sustainability, and low carbon solutions to increase resiliency.
“By exploring sustainable solutions such as LEDs, Renewable Energy Certificates, solar and energy conservation methods, you can achieve short term wins and relief from volatile energy prices, whilst also unlocking long term sustainability benefits and future proofing your business.
“Sustainability not only saves money by creating energy efficiencies, it also decreases your reliance on the grid, so you are no longer at the mercy of volatile energy prices,” he adds.
Keeping the lights on One of the trends we’re seeing in the industry is a move away from centralised, utility based generation – to so called ‘distributed generation.’ This is a shift from a single source to many sources to allow for increased resiliency and reduced reliance on the grid.
For example, traditionally if the grid goes down, you have no real option to keep your business going. But if you have solar with battery storage, you might be able to keep the lights on until the grid comes back online.
Additionally, you avoid the full impact of market volatility if your energy sources are distributed – it goes back to the wisdom of the old proverb, ‘don’t put all your eggs in one basket.’
Talk to us A great place to start when it comes to navigating the ever-changing energy markets is to talk to our team at Total Utilities. Our data-driven approach, born out of comprehensive investigations and analysis, allows us to carefully tailor energy services and solutions to your business.
With our proven 20 plus years in the energy business, we negotiate over $400 million worth of energy contracts for our clients every year. We can leverage relationships to get you better prices.
Our detailed pricing analysis and tendering services help save time and money by pinpointing the best possible energy contracts and ensuring the most favourable terms and prices.
We put sustainability, cost saving and energy efficiency at the heart of our clients’ businesses, so that they can be both sustainable and highly profitable.
And in this environment, setting sustainability and carbon reduction targets isn’t just about reducing your environmental impact – it simply makes good business sense.
Contact us to find out more about our energy management consultancy services.
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