In a relationship spanning years of success and mutual respect, the Massmart group has partnered with Building Management System (BMS) specialist, Green Wave Group and Schneider Electric for an installation of BMS solutions at its stores across South Africa.  To date, more than 155 BMS systems have been installed (at stores) across the group with a further 150 earmarked in the next year and a half.  

Massmart is already on target to achieve annualised energy savings of at least R 15 Million in 2022, recouping its entire investment within 12 months

The Schneider Electric EcoStruxure Building Operation (EBO) BMS system is currently being installed at Massmart-owned retail chains Makro, Game, Builders Warehouse as well as Massmart Distribution Centres, situated throughout the country.

Prior to the BMS project rollout, Massmart required an infrastructure that could provide centralised view of its retail stores that offer the following:

• Alarm monitoring.
• Alarm reporting.
• Energy reporting.
• Energy billing cost comparison.
• Energy saving opportunities.
• Better local control of HVAC and electrical systems from one solution.

“Massmart started an integrated programme to improve the efficiency and control of our buildings in 2020. This included an energy awareness program for our store operators, a utilities management department (utilising the Schneider Power Monitoring (PME) system) and a technical bureau utilising the Schneider EBO BMS system installed by our systems partner Green Wave,” explains Colin Gayton, Facilities General Manager at Massmart.

Green Wave and Schneider Electric proposed the EBO BMS architecture and solution that at its core offers an integrated BMS system that delivers the actionable insights needed to better manage and optimise buildings, improve engineering efficiency, and meet cybersecurity needs

Explains Thabang Byl, digital energy lead at Schneider Electric: “EcoStruxure Building Operation is an open and secure building management platform that integrates multiple systems for centralised, real-time control and management across one-to-many enterprise buildings. The platform natively supports standard open protocols out-of-the-box.”

Adds Nigel Armstrong, Director at Green Wave Group: “The Schneider Electric EBO BMS system installed at each retail store, for example provide local control over HVAC and lighting systems, ensuring that systems are only on when needed.  It also provides detailed insights on critical equipment like generators, UPSs, fire and security systems and water systems to name a few that contribute data collection and alarm reporting.  Furthermore, the EBO enterprise server and PME running on Massmart’s cloud service allows the group to centralise its retail stories into view.”

Massmart now benefits from:

• Centralised view of all its retail stores.
• Centralised control of their HVAC and electrical systems at a store level.
• Centralised alarm management reducing ongoing maintenance costs.
• Energy savings. As a result of the local control of the HVAC and electrical systems- this allows for detailed energy billing tariff opsonisation. This allows Massmart to compare tariff costs per store. 
• Alarm dashboards.
• Energy dashboards.

“The BMS is now installed in 155 stores across the group, with a rollout to a further 75 stores in 2022, and a similar number in 2023. Our BMS controls and monitors the operation of all electro-mechanical equipment resulting in not just energy savings, but also maintenance costs as real time monitoring enables us to increase physical maintenance intervals (net saving in 2022 of R 1.5 million). The BMS also contributes greatly to reducing equipment downtime,” says spokesperson at Massmart.

The BMS project is expected to be complete by 2024.