Success Stories

Internet of Things Success Stories Series #3
A new approach to an IoT energy based analysis
1. Problem:
During 2014 and 2015 a lot of different SMEs came to us to express their interest in using better their
renewable power plants. Most of them stressed about maximizing the usage of the energy produced.
Others were more focused about power consumption audits. Ecogriddy has been founded by engineers
with a long field experience, so its team started to analyse deeply some of the cases that have
been presented to us. Moreover we led a set of interviews with managers of SMEs with renewable
energy plants installed on their sites, technical installers, ESCOs. A common trait we discovered
between them is the difficulties that the interviewed people are facing in order to manage their expensive
plants in an effective and efficient way. Most surprisingly to us, many of the interviewed people
have a monitoring/supervising system in place. They rarely use it, or they don’t use it at all. The reason?
Those controlling systems are far too complicated to be used by non-technical people. Most of
them don’t understand what’s happening on their plants.
Plant users have to take informed decisions on costly activities (like production strategies or logistic
choices) based on important variables they don’t understand fully (like energy production rate /
consumption / forecasts).
There is a real and costly problem to solve: to make users aware on how their “green sourced” electrical
subsystems are working, performing and interacting with other subsystems and external factors
(like weather, human activities etc.).
2. Solution:
Ecogriddy solves the problem with an IoT approach that integrates
monitoring hardware, a network stack, a cloud based
predictive analytics, a data storage and a consumer oriented
web interface.
The technicalities and all the diagnostic information are still
there, if the user or, more likely, the technician asks for them,
but they are available only on request and on a low level view.
The system interacts with the user in a streamlined way, teaching
her/him how the plant is working, giving emphasis to
the events and the interactions that really matter.
Everything is there to maximize the usefulness of the plant,
getting the most from the investment in it.
3. Business model:
Since we are still in the early beta-test, our business model is
still subject to changes. One of the most promising scenario is
based on a Software-as-a-Service approach combined with a
one-time fee that covers hardware and installation costs. The
solution is priced according to a monthly fee which depends
on plant size. This business model fits also the customers’
expectations, because it’s becoming a common trend in the
services market. We have a working prototype (see the section
“Current Status …”) on a 1.6 MWp solar plant that serves
Trentino Trasporti’s logistical site. They will buy our solution
in 2016 and we are closing several contracts by the end of
2015 based on yearly subscription model and hardware price
paid upfront.
Our customers are SMEs with green power generators on
their production sites, plant installers that resell our solution
to their customers, system integrators and energy advisors
which use our platform as a design/audit tool.
Internet of Things • Success Stories 39 SERIES #3 - November 2015