When managing projects for a large number of buildings/sites spread across multiple locations, it is helpful to have a high-level view of their energy performance, from which you can conduct deeper analysis into the operations of a particular building/site. To help owners and managers of large portfolios, whether retail outlets, hotels or other commercial or industrial businesses, Wattics has released a new energy analytics data visualization tool, which enables you to visualise your data in an interactive world map. With the new embedded ‘Map View’ tool, you can view all the buildings/sites belonging to your organisations in one place.
Table of contents
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- Map tool basics: Where to find Map View in your Wattics energy management dashboard and how it works
- Use cases: How you could use the Map View tool for your project(s)
i. Use Case 1: Solar PV installation
ii. Use Case 2: Large retailer with multiple sites
iii. Use Case 3: Performing energy audits
1. Map tool basics: Where to find Maps in your Wattics dashboard and how it works
You’ll find the Map tool, represented by the map icon in the Dashboard Tab in your Wattics account (see screenshot above). By default, all of your monitored organisations and sites will be populated in the map view. Using the map, you can quickly reference the electricity, gas, water or other numerical data associated with your buildings. You can also view their associated costs within a specific time period for multiple buildings within a portfolio or individual buildings in any location across the world.
The circles in colour on the map, (see screenshot above) indicate the number of sites clustered in a particular location.
*Organisation: An Organisation represents the highest level entity in your menu tree hierarchy
If you have sites in multiple locations, the tool allows you to filter to these individually. You can do this by clicking on the map, or by typing the name of your site into the search field.
Below are some examples of how you can use the Map view tool in your analysis of your buildings’ performance and a number of practical applications:
2. Use Cases : How you could use the Map View tool for your project(s)
2.i. Use Case 1: Solar PV installation
In this example, let’s imagine that we are interested to see whether our hotel ‘Bellevue House’ would be suitable for PV installation. We’ve located the site in Map view (see screenshot below); however, for this purpose it would probably be most useful to look at the hotel using the satellite view by clicking here:
You can zoom in and out by using your mouse or tracker, or by using the “+” and “-” buttons on the right side of the map:
Now we have identified our roof, shown in the red box below. We can see that the building is orientated North-South, with a large area facing South and smaller sections facing East, which are optimal for PV installations. There appears to be no shading of concern surrounding the roof, which also seems to have a typical incline of 35°.
Zooming in further we get a clearer view of the construction and condition of the roof, which looks robust, relatively new and undamaged; however, we can see that the East facing roof has a number of skylights that will restrict the surface area for panel installation and the South roof has its flow interrupted by two roof joints with the rear building.
If you click and hold on the image you can look at the surrounding area in more detail, by moving your mouse to the left/right, or up/down.
You can also look at the building in street view by clicking on the yellow pegman in the image above and dragging to your desired location on the map. This again allows you to perform further scoping such as identifying the location of roof guttering, which influences the positioning of PV panels.
2.ii. Use Case 2: Large retailer with multiple sites
In addition to being a handy tool when considering an energy project, you are able to view all the sites within your organisation in one visualisation. As various utility data is available, you have an immediate overview of which sites are consuming or costing you the most within your portfolio.
You can access this data by selecting from the dropdown menu from which you can select the utility you are interested in and whether you would like to view this data in kWh values, or costs (see screenshot below).
You can also specify what time frame you are interested in i.e. “today”, “yesterday”, “this month”, “last month” “this year” etc. below, or enter custom dates:
To drill into specific building information you can click on the location tag in the map. A window will appear that provides you with data associated with your selection. You also have the option to navigate to the ‘Breakdown’ tool in your Wattics dashboard, if you would like to interrogate your data in more detail:
2.iii. Use Case 3: Performing Energy Audits
When conducting energy audits or surveys, it is useful to have an insight into the energy profile of a site, as this can highlight areas of focus and provide a framework for your audit. The Map view allows you to arrive at this information without needing to go into more data heavy parts of the Wattics platform.
You can gain quick insight into the operations of a site by looking at the building information by again clicking on the location tag. In the screenshot below, you can see that this retail unit is showing unexpectedly high consumption at 18:00 that appears anomalous against the remainder of the data, and this peak is occurring at a time that does not make obvious sense compared to their hours of opening. Now you are equipped to ask questions once on site about typical activities during this time. Without this view you would likely have been unaware of anything unusual happening even though you were on site at the time.
Another useful application of the Map, is to check the building style, size and condition, which will provide you with initial information about building age and the scope, or nature, of the audit that will be required.
Auditors may find the Map useful for many surveying purposes, not limited to ISO50001; numerous mandatory energy audits under the EU Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), such as the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS); energy compliance with local laws such as Local Law 87 in New York City; ESCO qualification in Lebanon; and multiple other applications: a client requesting an audit to reduce their energy usage, or perhaps to improve comfort levels in their buildings.
Do you think the Map tool could be useful for your projects?
If yes, and you are new to Wattics, contact us by using the form below to find out more:
If you are an existing Wattics partner, and would like to contact our support team for further information on how to use the Map tool or enable this feature in your dashboard, contact the Wattics Customer Success team at [email protected]
