National retail chain of discount stores saves more than $2,000,000 in energy costs per year with SiteSage

Customer

National Chain of Discount Stores

Challenge

Dramatic growth plus increasing energy, staff, and product costs.

Scope

Control HVAC and lighting as well as proactive HVAC analysis.

Return on Investment

Energy Savings of 10%+ in less than 18 months, saving $2M+ annual.

The Challenge

A national value retailer offering merchandise targeted at the teen and pre-teen market was experiencing dramatic growth while also being challenged with rapidly growing costs for staff, product, and operations, including the cost of energy.

 

The retailer felt that they had no flexibility to absorb these increased costs through increased product pricing. They needed to find an alternative solution to preserve their margins. In addition, their rapid growth meant the challenge of supporting their facilities and ensuring a consistently comfortable environment in their stores was growing.

 

To begin addressing these challenges, the company hired a facilities and energy expert to help them find a solution that could both provide relief to their operating costs and give them a platform for better control and visibility over their rapidly-expanding enterprise. After an extensive evaluation of the market, the consultant selected SiteSage for an initial 20-store pilot.

 

 

“SiteSage was selected due to its simple yet powerful enterprise-wide controls, analytics, and breadth of capabilities. We also chose SiteSage because of Powerhouse Dynamics’ responsiveness and willingness to listen and adjust their platform to best meet the unique aspects of the company’s operations.”
Senior Consultant, Facilities and Energy Management

The SiteSage Platform

For this customer, SiteSage was configured to deliver enterprise-wide:

  • Control over heating and cooling
  • Control over lighting
  • Proactive automated HVAC analysis

The customer was very concerned about data security given widely reported problems at several major retailers. SiteSage is able to ensure data security with the highest level of PCI compliance, which was a major consideration in selecting the platform.

 

At this customer, each Rooftop HVAC Unit (RTU) was remotely-controlled with the SiteSage SmartStat thermostat, ensuring a consistently comfortable environment while delivering efficient set-backs during unoccupied hours. SiteSage also tracked each RTU’s real-time power consumption and supply air temperature in order to automatically detect and alert on any units that need maintenance. Finally, the SiteSage controller was installed to automate the on/off schedule for major portions of each store’s lighting, including features to automatically account for holiday season settings. This helped minimize any excessive energy consumption due to lights being on when they should be off.

 

Results

The initial pilot evaluation of SiteSage across 20 locations showed energy savings in excess of 10%, offering a payback in under 18 months. In addition, the facilities team now had insights into RTU performance across all of their stores enabling more proactive (and lower cost) maintenance for problematic units.

 

As a result, the company’s leadership decided to design SiteSage into all new stores being constructed and approved SiteSage to be deployed across all existing stores. This now amounts to more than 1,000 locations.

 

The enterprise-wide deployment of SiteSage has continued to deliver results consistent with those realized during the pilot program, saving the company in excess of $2,000,000 per year — and growing as their number of new stores continues to grow.