BENEFITS OF FIRSTLOOK™ and REAL-TIME MONITORING
- By: Ken Nunes

Suntricity has developed FIRSTLOOK™ - an Online Database Platform, specifically for schools to enable a thorough understanding of both consumption and costs of Electricity and Water over a period of 4-years.
In the absence of qualified data, FIRSTLOOK™ provides the basic information, which, through Key Performance Indicators, gives crucial data sets, highlighting where further investigation is needed and where cost effective intervention would be best made.
FIRSTLOOK™ analyses Municipal Invoices for the years 203, 2014, 2015 and 2016 and provides the following Key Performance Indicators:
- Monthly Consumption and Cost in kWh & KL and Rand, over a 48-Month period.
- Annual Consumption and Cost in kWh & KL and Rand, over a 4-Year period.
- Cost Breakdown of both Electricity and Water
- Consumption per Learner per Day
- Estimated v Actual Readings
- Average costs per kWh and KL for Electricity and Water
- Compare costs per Learner per YEAR and Annual Costs for Electricity and Water with other Primary or Secondary/High Schools.
Some of the details we will look for can be outlined as follows:
- Are Electricity costs above R150,000 per annum and is the cost for Water more than R200 000 per annum. i.e. is the schools' total cost for Electricity and Water above R350 000 per annum.
- Is the Cost per Learner per Year more than R400. This effectively means that if your school spends approximately R350 000 per annum Electricity and Water combined, your school would have around 875 Learners.
- The KPI Consumption Per Learner Per Day for Electricity & Water generally indicates if this value. The "average" kWh consumption per Learner per Day is effectively 0,50 kWhs. Water can vary dramatically although as a guide, the recommended International Average is between 10 Litres and 15 Litres per Learner per Day.
- Average Electricity and Water costs per kWh will effect all of the above. The "average Electricity cost" in schools can be above R2,00 per kWh and Water KL Costs close to R40 per KL. These will increase in 2016 by approximately 10%.
- The Cost League Table compares your Primary with other Primary Schools over a 4 years period. The results will surprise most and will determine how useful will monitoring consumption be.
A 12-month programme of REAL-TIME MONITORING will identify the root causes of excessive consumption and enable a thorough understanding of consumption patterns, from which informed decisions are made.
In addition to providing the required data for the implementation of cost effective informed decision, Suntricity also carries out the following functions:
- REPORTING: Monthly updates of FirstLook™ will be available online and Quarterly Reports provided.
- LEGAL SUPPORT: Where needed, Suntricity will deal with any legal issues relating to Electricity and Water Invoices with the Municipality.
- LIGHTING AUDITS: A Walk-Through-Audit is carried out, to determine the cost effectiveness of changing existing fluorescent to LED Lighting.
- BUDGET RECOMMENDATIONS: By understanding the Real-Time-Monitoring data, we are able to provide the most value added and cost effective interventions to effectively reduce Municipal invoices.
- CLOSE COLLABORATION WITH MAINTENANCE STAFF: A close understanding will develop with the school’s caretaker, to explain the detail of all the data being captured and where savings are possible.
- ONLINE ACCESS TO DATA: The School’s Principal will be able to determine who at the school will be able to access Suntricity's Online Platform.
- DATA FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF SOLAR ENERGY: With Real-Time-Monitoring data every 15-minutes, calculating a Solar Energy Installation becomes very accurate and cost effective.
- ACCOUNTABILITY: Decisions made by the SGB relating to investments in reducing Electricity and Water costs can be based on fact!!!