EcoStruxure Facility Advisor ... enhancing efficiency at 19 Carrefour stores in Egypt.

Schneider Electric has deployed its EcoStruxure Facility Advisor solution, which helps monitor energy use and asset availability and enhance efficiency, across 19 Carrefour stores in Egypt with plans to roll it out to other stores of the mega retail brand.

In a competitive retail environment, Carrefour – operated by Majid Al Futtaim, the leading shopping mall, communities, retail and leisure pioneer in the Middle East, Africa and Asia – is constantly seeking ways to improve quality, choice and prices, while implementing sustainable business practices.

According to a spokesman for Schneider Electric, Carrefour started collaborating with the company in 2016 to find solutions to reduce power consumption.

The key goals, he says, included:

Graziato ... the project is aligned with Majid Al Futtaim’s strategy to become ‘net positive’.

Graziato ... the project is aligned with Majid Al Futtaim’s strategy to become ‘net positive’.

• Measuring energy consumption across stores to identify both high- and low-performing stores;

• Using energy dashboards and performance reports to continually optimise power usage;

• Ensuring protection against downtime threats, such as equipment malfunctions or power outages; and

• Maximising uptime for power, lighting, ovens, refrigerators, and other business-critical assets.

“Facility Advisor is a cloud-based platform which provides insights on consumption and alerts on electrical distribution quality. It helps eliminate power losses by detecting abnormal energy consumption of the connected assets and allowing actions to minimise unplanned breakdowns. It also assists in validating electrical costs on invoices by providing details on facility loads,” says the spokesman.

By logging onto a dedicated web portal, Carrefour can check the consumption levels of each store. Schneider’s engineering team analyses data from the Facility Advisor dashboards and detects abnormal activities to provide in-depth reports, which are provided to Carrefour Egypt twice a year, and will serve as action plans to optimize energy use.

Jean Luc Graziato, country head for Carrefour Egypt at Majid Al Futtaim Retail, says: “This project with Schneider is aligned with Majid Al Futtaim’s wider strategy to become ‘net positive’ by reducing its energy consumption and carbon emissions. Apart from the environmental benefits, the cost-effectiveness of implementing Facility Advisor also allows us to redistribute savings to enhance various aspects of our business, making our offering even more compelling for customers.”

“EcoStruxure Power solutions enable our customers to leverage digital intelligence in their facilities to unlock the full potential of their power distribution system,” comments Walid Sheta, zone president for Schneider North-East Africa and Levant.

He says Schneider’s experts collaborated with Majid Al Futtaim’s team to adapt Facility Advisor solutions to the specific configuration of Carrefour stores.

“Our engineers and Majid Al Futtaim’s team co-partnered in innovation. We have been continually working together to enhance the technology, strengthen the partnership, and uncover new ways to save energy.”

As part of Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure platform, EcoStruxure Power is an open, Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled, interoperable architecture for all clients using low- and medium-voltage equipment.

EcoStruxure Power enhances value around safety, reliability, efficiency, sustainability, and connectivity for customers, the spokesman says.

“It leverages advancements in IoT, mobility, sensing, cloud, analytics, and cybersecurity to deliver innovation at every level. This includes Connected Products, Edge Control, and Apps, Analytics & Services,” he explains.

EcoStruxure has been deployed in over 480,000 sites, with the support of more than 20,000 system integrators and developers, connecting over 1.5 million assets under management through over 40 digital services.

Schneider Electric is leading the digital transformation of energy management and automation in homes, buildings, data centres, infrastructure and industries.

With a global presence in over 100 countries, it is a leader in power management – medium voltage, low voltage and secure power, and in automation systems.