Getting energy data from a site should not be a project
Brent Weedon
Executive General Manager, LPA Tech
Most organisations meter the sites that were easy. The flagship building has interval data. The rest report a quarterly invoice, and the business makes decisions about them on estimates.
The reason is rarely the meter. It is everything between the meter and the platform. Someone has to choose the hardware, program it, connect it to a network, and check that the data is right. Each of those steps is a small job, but together they turn a metering install into a project. And projects can be delayed.
Today we are launching Edge Go, LPA’s edge device, to remove that project from the job.
The cost of a dark site
Across a portfolio, the dark sites are usually the majority. They are also where the savings and the reporting gaps sit, because nobody has been able to look at them.
The usual blocker is access. Connecting a meter to a platform means a network request, a firewall change, or a fixed address, and that request joins someone else’s queue. The electrician is ready. The data is not.
What we changed
We took on those four jobs so the site does not have to.
- Hardware. Edge Go arrives with a compatible LPA meter and the cabling for the install, tested together before dispatch.
- Programming. Each unit arrives configured, with its asset ID assigned and its WideSky connection loaded.
- Connectivity. Edge Go uses its own cellular connection, active before it leaves our warehouse. It never touches the site network, so there is no IT ticket to raise.
- Data checks. The electrician commissions it from a phone, and the app confirms live readings before they leave site.
Why this matters to the business
When connecting a site is one electrician visit instead of a project, metering the whole portfolio becomes a reasonable decision. Every site reports on the same basis. Outliers show up in a ranked list rather than at the end of a financial year. Reports draw on measured consumption, not estimates.
It also changes who carries the risk. A rollout that depends on network approvals at 30 different sites stalls at the first difficult one. A rollout that depends only on the switchboard moves as fast as the electrician does.
Built on work we have already done
Edge Go runs on WideSky, the platform LPA already uses to manage energy data for its customers. Every Edge Go unit is configured, tested, and supported by LPA in Australia.
If there are sites in your portfolio you cannot see today, that is the place to start. Learn more about Edge Go, or talk to our team about which of your sites are dark.