Flexenclosure Reflexions: Do you trust your data?

Are you in control of your business? Network energy costs can constitute up to 60% of operating expenses for towercos, yet many lack the tools they need to effectively control this significant and ever increasing cost. With no clear, real-time view of their hybrid power systems, it has been virtually impossible to proactively monitor and manage opex efficiency-driving activities and costs. Power related site data is massively important to towercos and as networks increase in both size and the number of tenants hosted, data will drive the difference between profitability and failure.

Data is useless if there’s no structure to how it’s:

1. Monitored and captured

2. Compiled

3. Analysed and reported, and

4. How it’s used in informed business decision-making.

Oceans of unstructured data are impossible to navigate, while gaps in data mean you won’t have enough information to make truly informed decisions. Data must be both complete and organised. But that in itself is not enough - precise reporting and analysis turns data into an invaluable tool that can properly inform major opex and capex investment decisions. Data that you can truly trust.

“Trust” is a big problem here.

The limited nature of most site energy systems means that the only way to gain a network overview is to monitor a disorganised stream of alarms, data sets and KPI values from multiple sources – a process that is time consuming, expensive and extremely prone to error.

Many towercos (and more broadly, mobile operators) find themselves frustrated with the systems they have today - typically simple standalone hardware-based systems that use sensors to plug into various elements of the site. Typically sensors monitor the gate entrance, temperatures, power generated from available sources, power used by tenants, and fuel usage.

A lot of money is spent on installing these systems to collect data, but the associated hardware can be very unreliable which in turn impacts the reliability of the data itself. This is compounded by the fact that these sensors are most often added after the main site power solution has been installed, with external placement and additional exposed cabling increasing the potential failure (and tampering) points. It’s not simply the fact that sensors can fail though, but that these hardware-based systems have no intelligence built into them to trigger an alarm that a sensor has indeed failed. So not only is no data being captured, but there’s also no record of the moment data capture ceased, leaving whatever data had been collected up to the point of failure next to useless. And at a practical level it means that people have to constantly travel to the sites to (somewhat ironically) monitor the monitoring system! This is because if a sensor is not delivering any data, you have no idea if the sensor has failed or if the site element it’s monitoring has failed, or perhaps even both. For example, if the grid sensor fails, how do you know if the grid is still providing reliable power or not? And for what period of time? If you then multiply this problem by the hundreds or perhaps thousands of sites in a network, and then again by the number of monitoring sensors at each site, it’s a very cost and time intensive issue to try to stay on top of and it’s not hard to see why towerco business analysts are having a nigh on impossible time coming up with meaningful and trustworthy numbers on which to base critical investment decisions.

The solution is having a software-driven intelligent monitoring system fully integrated with the power system right from the start, rather than adding it after the fact. This reduces the number of potential failure points and the performance of the sensors themselves can be monitored, with alarms flagging issues in real time, allowing for immediate action and resolution. This also allows for the easier combination of sensor output and system behaviours into smart alarms, like combining voltage generated and power used.

Capturing accurate data at the sensor level is one challenge. Compiling complete data at both site and network levels is another. This requires connectivity from all the sites to a central database, but with network connectivity often breaking down, data that has successfully been captured at the sensor level can then just as easily be lost during transfer. And with standard hardware based monitoring systems, there is often no way to recover the data once it is gone.

And whose responsibility is it? Towercos spend a lot of time fighting with monitoring system suppliers about responsibility, but it’s always a discussion that’s being had too late - whether the monitoring system or the network was at fault, the end result is the same.

The solution is an intelligent system that organises, time stamps and stores all collected data locally and checks with the central energy data warehouse what has been sent versus what has been received, so that any data lost during a network outage can be retransmitted. For example, Flexenclosure’s eManager site monitoring system guarantees 100% complete and accurate site reports regardless of communications breakdowns, thus ensuring that data is never lost.

Collected data needs to be analysed or it remains a combination of virtually useless numbers. Typically, Towercos need to have analysis scripts written bespoke in efforts to try to make sense of enormous workbooks of Excel data compiled by disparate sensors on site.  This is a complicated and incomplete solution compared to having the analysis and reporting capability fully integrated into the system from day one.  This can be done for the most crucial data points like fuel consumption, genset performance, power generated, power used, cooling data, battery use and equipment temperatures, as well as logistics data such as diesel refuelling, generator servicing, cooling filter replacements, and data required for battery warranty issues. The system also needs to be customisable, allowing users to create bespoke easy-to-read reports that seamlessly overlay with the standard ones, supporting every aspect of their business. This provides better opportunities for data analysis, management of opex, tighter tracking of assets, immediate bad site detection, faster response times to site critical failures and reduced frequency of site visits.

Reliable data is very important to inform major business decisions spanning both network energy opex cost control and broader asset investment and management.  These fall into two key categories: Operational (opex) and Investment (capex).

Operational: Accurate real-time performance data and alarms allow for effective planning and budgeting of maintenance and refuelling, and enable energy managers to make better commercial and technical decisions. It also means they have the crucial data required for the proactive management of unforeseen events, ensuring reliable site power and optimised performance across their networks by always having the right technician at the site, exactly when needed and with the right tools and parts.

For example, diesel management and refuelling is often impossible to do accurately using hardware-based systems. Did we really use that much fuel? Has any been stolen? Was it ever delivered in the first place? Is there no data because we haven’t needed to use any diesel for this period? Or is the sensor faulty again? These are all typical questions that most often can’t be accurately answered using a hardware-based system. But a fully integrated intelligent solution can combine the output of, for example, fuel level, fuel flow, power generated and power used sensors to give a remarkably complete picture that can accurately inform critical questions such as diesel planning.

The operational issues go far beyond daily site planning though. In order to bill tenants correctly, sensors and monitoring systems really need to be reliable, especially if they are connected directly to a billing system detailing tenant energy use.  The scope for undermining good customer relationships through system failure does not bear thinking about.

Investment: Reliable data is also critical for informing future investment decisions. For example, with the right data it’s relatively easy to calculate whether a given grid connection is reliable enough to merit paying the fixed connection fee charged by most power companies… or if investment can be justifiably made to upgrade the power system... or whether in fact it would be more cost effective to move to an off-grid solution with solar power.

Data should be providing accurate quantitative and qualitative historical performance analysis, trend benchmarking, forward planning and real-time monitoring for true energy optimisation. But towercos are struggling to understand how to best crunch the data they have in the most useful way, with incomplete raw numbers and a lack of analysis and reporting tools resulting in a lack of trust in the data that seriously impairs informed business decision-making.

The answer is a fully integrated intelligent solution like Flexenclosure’s eManager, that lets you look across your entire network as well as performing deep dive analyses on a site-by-site basis.  Now, rather than making broad decisions based on overall and incomplete network-level results, reliable data is available to help drive profitable business planning. Data you can trust.