Company
Royal Mail Group
Headquarters
London, England
End Customer
Private, Residential, Commercial and Industrial Entities
Industry
Postal & Logistics
Key Products Used
Energy Footprint
Energy footprint of c.500 GWh
Integration Partner
EnergyCAP
Case Study
Wireless Energy Monitoring at Scale with Royal Mail, EpiSensor and EnergyCAP collaboration
Background
Royal Mail is the UK’s most established logistics and postal service provider, operating an extensive network of mail centres across the country. As a major energy consumer with ambitious net-zero targets for 2040, Royal Mail is focused on improving operational efficiency and sustainability.
Already leveraging EnergyCAP Smart Analytics platform for utility data analysis, Royal Mail sought to strengthen its real-time visibility of site-level energy usage to support these goals. This led to a collaboration with EpiSensor, resulting in a successful pilot project at the Cardiff Mail Centre and a subsequent national rollout across 40 of Royal Mail’s largest Mail Centres.
The Project
The pilot project deployed ZEM wireless electricity meters and ZGW Gateway at the Cardiff Mail Centre.
Data collected from EpiSensor’s wireless infrastructure is exported directly to EnergyCAP Smart Analytics, allowing the Royal Mail energy team to monitor consumption in real time and identify areas for improvement.
Key Benefits
- Fast Deployment: The wireless system enabled rapid installation with minimal disruption, ideal for operational logistics environments. The systems are designed to be easy to install and use.
- High-Accuracy Monitoring: ZEM meters provide system-level accuracy with pre-installed and pre-calibrated CTs, which guarantees a system-level accuracy of Class 0.5S.
- Fully Secure: The systems are fully secure from sensor to server. The data is sent securely to EnergyCAP.
- Seamless Integration: Data exports directly into EnergyCAP visualisation platform, eliminating manual processing or data silos.
- Reliable: No loss of data in case of a communication or power failure. The devices will log years of time-stamped data until the connection is restored.
- Scalability: The systems can easily expand and scale smoothly from one site to thousands.
Scaling Up: Nationwide Rollout
Following the success of the Cardiff pilot, Royal Mail committed to expanding the solution to 40 major mail centres across the UK. The same scalable blueprint used in Cardiff is now being replicated nationally, offering consistent and real-time visibility into energy usage at each site.
Results
- Data-Driven Cost Savings: Royal Mail have identified very early on areas of energy consumption anomalies, incl. out of hours lighting, which has led to cost savings.
- Improved Energy Insight: Real-time monitoring enables more effective energy management and supports data-driven decisions.
- Operational Efficiency: The system allows Royal Mail to optimise energy use across a diverse portfolio of facilities.
- Sustainability Support: The collaboration helps Royal Mail advance its ambitious carbon reduction and environmental performance goals.
”“The visibility we now have into our energy use is transformational. EpiSensor’s wireless monitoring has allowed us to identify inefficiencies almost immediately and act on them. The speed of deployment and the accuracy of the data have been key in helping us drive both cost savings and operational improvements across our Mail Centres.”
Ian BeynonEnergy Manager, Royal Mail
Beyond Electricity: Comprehensive Monitoring and Demand Flexibility
EpiSensor’s industrial IoT systems offer a full spectrum of utility and environmental monitoring. This flexibility future-proofs the system and ensures Royal Mail can easily expand beyond electricity without needing new infrastructure.
The platform is capable of integrating data from:
- Gas and Water: Pulse outputs from existing meters for comprehensive utility consumption.
- Thermal Metering: Integration via protocols like M-Bus and Modbus for heating and cooling systems.
- Demand Response (DR) Ready: EpiSensor’s platform is currently utilised in major commercial and industrial Demand Response projects.
- Asset Control: The system is designed to communicate with and control decentralised energy assets, including battery storage systems, renewable energy generation, and full Virtual Power Plants (VPPs).
- Environmental Data: Real-time logging of temperature and humidity, crucial for operational efficiency across logistics centres.
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