The objective?
Following OPTIVO’s merger with Southern Housing Group in December 2022, the two companies have now become the largest housing provider in the UK with over 77,000 homes across London, the South East, the Isle of Wight and the Midlands.
Back in 2022, OPTIVO required a bulk and block level metering solution to help monitor and manage energy costs across 60 of their networks. Any solution proposed needed to support residents in saving money on their bills and help to reduce OPTIVO’s overall environmental impact, as part of their Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) goals.
How Sycous helped?
Sycous proposed a non-evasive Clamp-On metering and data collection solution to install across all networks.
As the property portfolio included mainly Retirement Housing the need for keeping the network supply running couldn’t be more critical, especially during winter months. The Micronics U1000 Clamp-On meter provided a solution to avoid the properties heat network system needing to be drained, compared with alternative in-line meters.
For extracting performance data across all networks our experts proposed the Secure Meters Liberty 100 combined with their eWatch Heat Energy Efficiency software. Allowing OPTIVO to generate reports on building performance, easily identify poor performing properties and proactively respond to maintenance issues.
How we did it?
Our Sycous Technical Delivery team started the project with a detailed survey of the works required, to ensure we could correctly plan and efficiently deliver the metering installations without disruption to essential services for residents.
Each U1000 Clamp-On Meter was installed by our Sycous Engineering team who received manufacturer technical training from Micronics, ensuring each meter had been installed to best practice. In addition, our team added an Insulation jacket alongside the meter to maintain the efficiency of the system in place and prevent any temperature losses.
Throughout the installations our Sycous and Micronics key partnership allowed any connectivity issues to be resolved efficiently, without disrupting project timelines. Sycous Engineers took a proactive approach in testing MBus settings on site to provide a first-time-fix in resolving any connectivity issues.
The project also coincided with the OPTIVO and Southern Housing Group merger. Sycous provided full flexibility during this crossover period, allowing changes to the project plan to suit the needs of the client.
After the installs, OPTVIO needed to unlock the performance data across their networks. Utilising the report functionality within our Mabdeck Software, Sycous push all the network metering data to the e-Watch Heat SFTP files. Allowing dwelling and bulk metering data to be readily available.
Result?
OPTIVO & Southern Housing Group can now monitor network performance through Secure Meters eWatch Heat Software (With help from our Mabdeck Software) and respond to maintenance issues effectively. For residents, this solution and installation should keep their network running efficiently, leading to less disruption to service and lower costs.
