Knowledge, the saying goes, is power. The business world has frequent, daily, illustrations of this principle in action: companies that work smarter tend to flourish.
A good example is MMI Group, a Pinergy customer that slashed their annual energy costs by 10%. And they did this without having to compromise on productivity, without having to invest in new equipment or premises, or even without so much as changing a lightbulb.
Here’s how it happened.
The Medal Maker
Pinergy Smart Business works with anyone in a commercial space. Businesses that use this service include those in sports & leisure, manufacturing, retail and beyond.
Pinergy is the only company that has the tech to allow a business full insight and data on energy usage running through their site or sites. This is especially useful if a site closes on evenings or weekends and if it operates specialist, heavy appliances.
MMI Group is one of Ireland’s best-known manufacturer of awards and medals. Indeed, if you’ve seen a GAA All Ireland Final in recent years, you’ve seen some of the medals they’ve made.
As you might expect, MMI believes in switching off all machines and appliances on weekends when factories and warehouses close. However, when they switched to Pinergy, they discovered that many appliances had been left on or in standby mode. In fact, with Pinergy’s Smart Meter, they were able to see exactly where and when this energy wastage was happening.
In many cases, when a machine seems to be turned off, it’s not. After switching to Pinergy, MMI Group had instant, precise details of these occurrences.
Real Savings
MMI Group had been spending €50 on energy every weekend, in a closed factory and warehouse. Several switches had been left on, or on standby, unbeknownst to the company.
After Pinergy gave them the opportunity to pinpoint this energy waste, MMI Group brought in sweeping behavioural changes throughout the company. Now, they spend €7 per weekend on energy instead of €50.
This is an annual saving of over €2,000, or 10% of energy costs, all of which was done with behavioural changes. No infrastructural changes were needed, not so much as a new lamp. It also meant, of course, no compromise on output – those school trophies, commemorative coins and all-important GAA medals would still reach their customers at the intended time.
Further Opportunities
With all of our business customers, our energy services team makes additional suggestions about investments that they could make. In each case, we provide practical, feasible and bespoke ways to reduce energy bills.
For instance, one business customer was advised that they could make further savings if they switched their entire factory and warehouse lighting to LED bulbs. The next step they would take would be based on their own available finances and long-term plans, but Pinergy were able to provide the necessary data to suggest the behavioural and technology changes that can be made.
Reduced Energy Usage
Based on one change, in terms of switching machines off, a 10% reduction in energy cost is very significant for MMI Group. And, because this benefit is based on only one change, that means that even more energy savings are possible.
Businesses are finding out how to manage costs more efficiently and are changing providers to get the answers they didn’t have before.
If you’d like to know more about how your business can make energy savings, we’d be happy to talk to you.