Analyzing odd measurement results with Sligro
Sligro Food Group is a Dutch listed company headquartered in Veghel, The Netherlands. The company supplies over 75,000 food and non-food items to food retailers, hospitality operators, institutional customers, and other large-scale buyers. Some time ago, the company installed measuring equipment to chart the energy consumption of its installations. However, the measurement results were peculiar: solar panels appeared to consume energy, while heat pumps seemed to be producing energy. “They wanted to identify the possible causes of this unexpected data and get the measurement results validated. We also wanted to avoid these anomalies from occurring in the future,” says Menno Spitteler, Electrical Engineer, HyTEPS.
“As an independent party, HyTEPS checked and validated all measurements, detected historical errors in the installation and provided in-company training. “We found out that inconsistencies in the installation meant that overall findings were wrong, despite the fact that the installers had connected everything exactly as they should have.
For me personally, this was a very interesting project, because it was not purely about a technical issue, but also looked at people and processes. Normally, we take measurements, detect problems, and implement the best solution. Now, we also needed to deal with certain processes in the field and training: work involving real humans! Installers who do a perfect job when it comes to connections began to look differently at connecting and measuring in the context of a large installation, when you don’t know how good documentation or previous connections are.”
“Through more accurate measurements and greater awareness of possible pain points in the installation, improvements can now be planned, and costly errors can be avoided. HyTEPS has ensured that validated measurement data can now be used. Installers recognize the importance of validation. Because you can only work on things like load balancing, ‘inspansion’, or optimization if you know all your data is in order. The people at Sligro were very open and transparent and really wanted to learn new things with us. For this project, I was also able to delve into the topic of measurement uncertainty. Incidentally, this was the first time I provided training on behalf of HyTEPS. Very nice! I would like to do that more often, with other customers…”
