Revolutionising Retail with Industrial IoT & Energy Analytics
major UK retailer
data every 60 seconds
4.5% savings achieved
Since 2018 we’ve been building a relationship with Sainsbury’s, a major UK retailer who have over 2000 locations across the country and over 20 million customer transactions per week. Sainsbury’s contacted our team with a specific goal in mind: to gain and increase visibility and control of assets within their estate with regards to their energy usage.
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Demand for Intense Analysis
There is a requirement for ongoing analysis of Sainsbury’s processes and energy consumption patterns to identify where efficiencies can be made – as part of the supermarket’s ambition to become Net Zero across its own operations by 2040.
Our initial energy monitoring session highlighted errors in energy consumption processes that were the leading causes of high usage. In one store, we observed excess levels of energy being drawn and identified which broken asset was to blame. Between Sainsbury’s and the Hark team, end-goals were collated and simplified. The supermarket chain required:
- The ability to observe all stores and devices from their HQ and subsequently pinpoint environmentally inefficient stores.
- The ability to then control devices from HQ to avoid high energy consumption and rising energy prices
- The ability to highlight potential failures and inefficiencies within assets or devices before they happen.
Our Solution
The Hark Platform consists of two components. The Hark Gateway, a physical device that runs on the edge that connects to Submeters, HVAC Systems, Solar Panels and more. We use industry-standard protocols such as Modbus and BACnet, and one gateways can connect many assets together.
The Hark Gateway then streams data to our cloud-based dashboard in real-time. Data such as Energy Demand, Power Quality, and Voltage Information is sent every 60 seconds to the Hark Platform.
We installed the Hark Gateways to over 40 different asset groups in stores and will be retrieving over 2 million readings per-day, per-store. This will provide significant insight into their energy-usage patterns and highlight potential areas of concern regarding efficiency.
Mass Supermarket Rollout Across the UK
Our team worked in tandem with the retailer to identify asset groups that have the highest cost and biggest potential impact. This involved an initial on-site survey in which we identified assets that could connect to the Hark Platform quickly and easily for realtime insight. Then, a proof of concept was fitted into a single store to monitor several asset groups such as the Bakery, Refrigeration, HVAC and Lighting. The following weeks of data collection gave our client the ability to identify the highest energy-consumptive assets while analysing information that had never before been available to them.
Critical information had been gathered by the Hark Platform that, if utilised at a larger scale across a single region, could provide unprecedented visibility of asset energy patterns, reduce energy costs drastically and reduce their carbon footprint. We forged and implemented a plan to monitor 20 stores across 3 months. Following its success, Sainsbury’s was soon keen to issue a mass rollout to all of their supermarkets across the UK.
Implementation and Results
What were the lasting results of working together with a UK enterprise to implement smart IoT technology into their entire estate?
The Hark Platform receives energy consumption data every 60 seconds. Over a 24-hour period, 1,440 readings are taken. In total, 368,640,000 readings are now taken daily for the retailer. With such a massive amount of data recorded and stored for analysis, the following results have been noted so far:
- Energy impact and asset performance can be observed and analysed in real-time.
- In Sainsbury’s stores, the Hark Platform has detected anomalies that have saved 4.5% of lighting costs by detecting problems and alerting the relevant people in real-time.
Want to Connect Your Assets?
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