Reducing Energy Consumption in Retail Branches: The Case of Woodie’s 

At a time of escalating environmental concerns and rapidly changing consumer preferences, business owners around the world are being forced to re-evaluate their practices and adopt sustainable approaches to reduce energy consumption in retail. Among them, the retail sector has become a focal point for energy management and conservation efforts.  

This article focuses on the success story of Woodie’s, a well-known Irish DIY Store and a subsidiary of Grafton Group plc. Woodie’s used a combination of energy management solutions and ongoing energy optimization techniques to reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions. 

This forward-thinking retailer recognized that it was imperative to reduce energy costs and their impact on the environment. Woodie’s is supported by our Partner Energy & Technical Services (ETS), a European energy management and building technology consultancy. ETS follows a data-driven approach that uses real-time energy consumption data to generate sustained energy and CO₂ savings.  

The Energy Challenge 

For retail sites, such as Woodie’s, understanding and managing energy consumption is crucial for cost control, sustainability, and operational efficiency. However, without accurate and real-time energy usage data, sites face various challenges: 

• Lack of visibility into energy usage patterns makes it difficult to pinpoint areas of high consumption or waste. As a result, it becomes harder to implement targeted, effective energy-saving measures.
• Insufficient monitoring limits a site’s ability to support sustainability goals such as lowering carbon emissions, adopting energy-efficient technologies, or demonstrating environmental responsibility.
• No continuous tracking means anomalies—like sudden energy spikes or equipment faults—can go unnoticed. This not only drives up energy costs but also risks equipment failure and operational downtime.

During this project, all these challenges were addressed and managed through ETS’ Energy & Carbon Saving Team with real-time energy monitoring, data analysis and insights, automated alerts and notifications as well as benchmarking and comparison.  

The Solution for Woodie’s to Reduce Energy Consumption

In 2020, ETS successfully implemented Spacewell Energy across the 35 stores and head office with the objective of helping their client Woodie’s to improve energy performance and achieve cost savings.  

74 new meters were installed for 36 sites and over 300 site specific alerts were set up to automatically monitor energy use and enable ETS to find opportunities for improvements for Woodie’s. 

The Platform enabled real-time monitoring of energy consumption, automated alerting, data analysis, and reporting capabilities.  

Woodie’s also uses Spacewell Energy to monitor energy consumption across sites on a half-hourly basis. The map function of the Spacewell Energy platform provides a geographical view of each branch and a color-coded benchmark. Each branch, with the lowest to the highest energy consumption, is categorized using various criteria. This function shows the user immediately which branches in the entire portfolio are performing best or worst. 

Over the years, the implementation of the energy management tool has helped Woodie’s to achieve improved energy performance across the sites and with that, reduce the money spent on energy.  

• Automatic alerts were configured to promptly notify stakeholders of any energy deviations or anomalies, allowing for immediate action to mitigate risks and avoid unnecessary costs. 

• Data collected by the platform was leveraged to generate various reports, visualizations, and insights into energy consumption patterns. 

• Opportunities for optimizing energy usage and reducing costs were found and implemented. This empowered Woodie’s to identify energy-saving opportunities, prioritize investments, and make informed decisions regarding operational changes. 

• Energy savings from other projects (e.g., BMS installations) were tracked through the system, providing valuable insights into their success, and informing future initiatives.  

Overall, the use of Spacewell Energy gave Woodie’s a better understanding of their energy behaviors and therefore allowed for better energy management across all sites.