We take care of planned and reactive maintenance for one of the UK’s fastest growing variety retailers.

The Challenge

When B&M, one of Britain’s biggest discounted retail stores approached us to manage their lighting and electrical maintenance we knew we could make a difference to their bottom line.

Hand in hand with the maintenance factor came energy management, it was clear many stores were not making proper use of the controls and significant savings were to be made.

The Solution

To kick off the energy saving process, the Greenlite Group team used our ‘Energy Watch’ audit service to obtain energy usage data in order to identify high useage stores and any anomalies in the data, such as; systems being left on overnight unnecessarily, a typical scenario when the store has poor control over the systems. Other reasons for high usage investigated included dated technologies, excess machinery use, poor control or sub-metering.

After visiting the problem stores identified through the energy watch audit, we proposed a simple, cost-effective solution which would ensure B&M Bargains started seeing immediate savings on their energy bills.

Our team of engineers installed ‘last man out’ switches throughout the depots to ensure all lighting and heating systems are switched off overnight. Provided the members of staff at each B&M store ensure the last team member to leave flicks the switch, B&M managers can rest easy knowing their depots are not wasting money and energy.

We forecast that B&M would save over £11,000 in the first two months of installing last man out switches at an initial 15 stores. The B&M management team is monitoring this closely in order to estimate the probably savings across all 512 stores.

Aside from our energy cost saving solution we also service planned and reactive maintenance call-outs, keeping the lights on and providing B&M with reliable nationwide coverage when they need it.

The Outcome

Reduced energy costs: B&M retail stores have seen significant savings following the installation of simple controls.

Uniformly lit stores: Keeping the lights on assists sales, maintains a pleasant shopping experience for customer and creates a more comfortable working environment increasing staff productivity.

Increased visibility on energy use: continuous monitoring of sites’ energy use and resolution of anomalies.