Wattics and Smappee partner to deliver a data-driven solution to help building and business owners achieve higher energy savings & cut costs

Smappee and Wattics Energy Analytics have teamed up to help business owners and managers of large commercial and industrial buildings analyse just how resource-efficient their buildings and operations are, and to find out where the opportunities exist for increased savings.

Wattics’ powerful energy management software allows energy analysts and managers to go much further than basic monitoring, providing highly granular insight into operational performance for improved efficiency, optimisation and control.

If you have a Smappee device, you can send your energy, water, gas, solar as well as other business & environmental data to the Wattics cloud-based analytics dashboard seamlessly so that you can begin your deep analysis to find saving opportunities and build reports.

With Wattics and Smappee data, you can:

• Increase visibility and transparency of building operations resource utilization
• Identify the highest consuming equipment, facilities, areas in a building/business
• Dig deep into the performance of a single building/site or compare building performance against benchmarks and KPIs across tens, hundreds, even thousands of buildings & sites
• Pinpoint the source of abnormal behaviours or spikes in energy use
• Measure, verify and model energy savings without having to work on multiple spreadsheets
• Better understand & verify the charges on utility bills
• Analyse tariffs from multiple energy suppliers to select the best rate for your energy requirements
• Ensure that you are getting the most out of your solar system, analyse solar performance and detect anomalies/faults
• Organise, monitor and track energy-saving projects in one place
• Streamline and automate energy savings reports 
• Added value for ESCOs: Create a new revenue stream, or add Smappee and Wattics to an existing solution, customisable with your company branding, logo and colours.

Let’s take a look at some examples of how you might use your Smappee data for advanced analysis in the Wattics dashboard:

Case Study #1:

—> How to normalise energy use to evaluate the impact of external variables on energy consumption patterns

Let’s suppose that a manufacturer of potato chips ‘Organic Potato Chips, would like to evaluate the impact of its production (in kgs) on its total monthly energy consumption for April and July 2019. Through the Wattics dashboard, Organic Potato Chips’ facility manager, ‘Owen’, can visualise the energy monitoring data gathered from the Smappee devices installed throughout the potato chip factory and compare against the company’s production data for the specified period – in this particular case, kgs of potato chips produced in April and July 2019. This KPI (production data) is uploaded to the Wattics platform and saved for further analysis on the dashboard. Owen will be able to immediately see how changes in production affect energy use patterns, as is demonstrated in image 1 below:

Owen would also like to check the impact of outside temperature on energy usage patterns in the factory through the application of Heating Degree Days (HDD) and Cooling Degree Days (CDD). In image 2 (see below) Owen has applied production data as well as HDD/CDD data to his analysis in order to account for the variables that could potentially have the largest impact in his factory’s energy consumption. The formula created for this calculation in Wattics is highlighted. This calculation can be saved and edited when necessary and used as part of another formula or analysis.

*HDD and CDD are dynamic KPIs which is automatically imported into the Wattics dashboard based on the location of your building/site

Some additional insight that can be gained through the analysis using the example above include:

• The total cost of production i.e. total energy cost per month, which can also be used to verify charges in utility bills
• The average production of potato chips in a day/week/month or multiyear period
• If production rises above/falls below a threshold
• Total (tons) CO2 emissions emitted as a result of production and/or building operations eg. lighting, fans etc, provided the necessary CO2 conversion factor be applied 
• The highest consuming appliances/equipment in the factory (provided there is sub-metering in place)
• Comparison of energy usage across multiple potato chip factories, in the case, of Organic Potato Chips operating in more than one location
• The rate of production compared to a competitor or industry average

Production data can be replaced with any business-oriented data you might have: number of visitors/booked rooms/booked tables/working hours, volumes of liquids, number of processed items and so on. 

Case Study #2:

–> How to model potential savings BEFORE implementing a change/retrofit in your building

With your Smappee monitoring data present on the Wattics dashboard, you have the ability to model potential energy and cost savings for retrofit/upgrades projects and behavioural change programmes before their implementation. The first step is to analyse the energy intensity of a building/business’s current operations with the assistance of heat maps and second, create “what-if” scenarios using a modelling tool to amend current operating hours to evaluate the savings potential of energy conservation measures.

Let’s imagine a scenario in which we need to evaluate the savings potential of installing a timer to regulate the HVAC system in a commercial office building in order to minimise energy costs, while still maintaining optimal comfort levels for occupants.

Image 3 below demonstrates the current energy intensity of the office building’s HVAC system. 

Using the operations scheduling tool in the Wattics dashboard, we can change the days as well as the times of the day that the HVAC is in operation, simulating the amended operation schedule as if timer were in place. Through this optimisation, the Wattics system is able to generate the potential energy and cost savings should the timer be installed – as well as the cost of not installing the timer to regulate the operation of the building HVAC system.

Let’s say we decided to put the system on stand-by mode before 6 am Monday to Friday, until 10 am on a Saturday, all of Sunday as well as a few hours in the evening, on a Friday and Saturday – meaning shorter time periods when in operation. According to the system’s specs, stand-by mode can bring consumption down by 87%. This is the percentage that will be entered into the model and applied taking into account the new operational hours. Once this new model is saved, the Wattics system could calculate that for the month of September 2020 we could have saved £317. However, if we had installed the timer on the 1st of January till the day of the analysis we could have saved £2,936.5 in total. This is demonstrated in image 4 below:  

This analysis will help to make an informed decision if the end customer needs to invest in the additional equipment and when they can potentially get a return on investment. 

With this ‘What-If’ analysis, you can model different projects, for example, lighting retrofit, solar PV installation, change of working schedule, switching off equipment automatically, replacing the equipment with more energy-efficient alternatives.

Case Study #3:

–> How to check if your building is using the majority of its energy supply from the grid or from an onsite solar system

The Wattics dashboard offers a myriad of insights using your Smappee solar monitoring data. Not only is it possible to analyse how much onsite solar energy is used by your building/facility compared to the grid, but it is also possible to evaluate how much excess solar power is potentially wasted if not stored and how much is consumed from the grid. To solve this, we need to build the calculation of the difference between Solar PV and grid-supplied consumption.

Let’s see how this is calculated in the Wattics dashboard:

Similarly to the case study#3 above, facility managers/building owners considering investing in an energy storage system to store excess solar energy can use the Wattics operations analyser tool, to conduct a preliminary analysis to understand the return on investment and payback period of such an investment. For this, we need to separate excess solar energy generated and multiply by the night kWh rate (when we could consume this energy from storage and not have to pay a utility provider). 

The formula will look like the following: 

If( (Solar PV – Consumption) >0, (Solar PV – Consumption)*$0.18,0)

Let’s see what this calculation looks like in the Wattics dashboard:

Using your Smappee solar data, you could also do the following analyses in the Wattics dashboard:

• Solar PV energy production based on KPIs eg. The variance between expected kWh and actual kWh;
• Performance ratio of solar PV plant i.e. relationship between actual plant energy production and designed target energy production

Case Study #4:

–> How to identify abnormal consumption behaviours/anomalies in your building and take proactive action

Using your Smappee monitoring data and the Wattics’ alerts & notifications feature, you can set up custom alerts based on certain conditions to notify you of abnormal consumption behaviours, which could be a telltale sign of a larger issue eg. faulty equipment. See the example directly below:

The extended example below demonstrates how an industrial laundromat has set up an alert to detect a potential leak at one of their premises in Balbriggan, Dublin. The laundromat does not operate on weekends and thus water consumption should be 0. Here’s how County Dublin Cleaners have set up a notification, to notify it of a potential leak at their premises in Balbriggan.

The alert is set up on the conditions listed below based on the example above:

1. First, select the alert type eg. Value against a threshold 
2. Give your alert a name eg. ‘Potential Leak Balbriggan’
3. Select the unit of measure for the alert eg. m3
4. Select the appropriate condition for the alert eg. “is greater than”
5. Select a threshold for the alert eg. 0.1 (m3)
6. Select how many consecutive readings are acceptable before the alert is triggered eg. 3 in a row
7. Select the times of day or days for when you want the alert enabled eg. County Dublin Cleaners has chosen to be alerted if water consumption exceeds 0.1 m3, at any time of the day, in three consecutive instances on weekends.
8. Select how you would like to be notified should the alert be triggered eg. SMS, email, dashboard notification. In the example above, County Dublin Cleaners has also selected the option to send a notification to all management staff at their Balbriggan site. 

Once an alert is set up, the Wattics system will alert you immediately if these conditions are triggered – allowing you to respond, investigate further and take action.

These are just a few practical use cases that demonstrate the power of combining your Smappee data with Wattics Energy Analytics, helping you to get the best possible results out of your projects through thorough analysis.

Antonio Ruzzelli, CEO and Co-Founder also commented on the new partnership and the technology integration, saying: “Wattics is excited to be partnering with a recognised, award-winning clean-tech firm whose solutions are adopted worldwide, and one that is aligned with Wattics’ ethos of continuous innovation for a cleaner, greener and more sustainable world.

“We hope that through our partnership with Smappee, we have the ability to help those responsible for improving energy efficiency, cutting emissions and costs within their organisations or on behalf of their clients, to dig a lot deeper into the performance of their facilities, equipping themselves the insights needed to embark on energy-saving projects with confidence. This improved visibility and transparency are critical when guaranteeing savings where the implementation of energy-saving conservation measures is concerned.

“Furthermore, the Wattics energy analytics software is designed to save energy professionals 90% of the time spent doing manual energy analysis in spreadsheets, through machine-learning intelligence, so that they can focus on achieving savings, rather than spend time on manually gathering data and managing multiple spreadsheets.”

For more information on the technology integration of Smappee + Wattics, and to know more about how you can connect your Smappee devices to Wattics energy analytics dashboard, fill in the form with your details below, and we’ll contact you!

About Smappee

Smappee is an award-winning global cleantech company that aims to save its customers energy and money by reducing energy consumption and improving energy efficiency. Our future-proof energy management system Smappee Infinity uses state-of-the-art technology to analyze the real-time use of electricity, solar power, gas and water. The new Smappee EV Base is the first of a series of EV charging stations that enable the optimal and smart charging of electric vehicles. The company was founded by Stefan Grosjean in 2012 and is headquartered in a new cleantech hub ‘Snowball’ in Harelbeke (Belgium).

About Wattics:

Wattics is an enterprise cloud energy management and analytics software used by energy service companies, energy consultancies, as well as green building, and facility management professionals to monitor energy consumption, spot energy inefficiencies, increase sustainability and reduce CO2 emissions for buildings and businesses in commercial and industrial environments. The software platform enables the collection, management, and analysis of utility/IoT/sub-meter data to conduct energy audits, forecast savings, benchmark building portfolios and analyse KPIs, measure and verify efficiency and renewable energy projects, analyse tariffs and create sustainability reports at scale.