AWARDS FINALIST: Woolworths New Zealand – Predictive Power: Scaling AI-driven decarbonisation across New Zealand

Woolworths New Zealand expects to save more than $3 million a year through an analytics-driven energy management programme that uses artificial intelligence and predictive modelling to optimise refrigeration, lighting, and HVAC systems across its supermarket network.

The company has partnered with Bueno Analytics to replace a largely reactive maintenance model with a centralised Energy Management Centre that continuously monitors store performance and prioritises maintenance interventions across the portfolio.

Woolworths says the system analyses approximately two million data points every five minutes, or more than 570 million data points daily, to identify energy waste, equipment faults, and operational inefficiencies.

The supermarket chain accounts for about 1 per cent of the country's electricity use and is a finalist in the large energy user initiative category at this year's New Zealand Energy Excellence Awards.

The programme was developed to address the complexity of managing energy-intensive supermarket operations, where refrigeration, HVAC, lighting, and other building systems are supplied by multiple vendors and generate large volumes of operational data.

Predictive tools

Woolworths says traditional approaches often identified problems only after alarms, customer complaints, or abnormal energy bills.

Key components of the initiative include the rollout of network connectivity and electrical sub-metering across supermarkets, and lighting automation controls at 185 stores. The company is also working to optimise HVAC with an initial eight-store trial.

The HVAC programme includes temperature setbacks during low-occupancy periods, dehumidification controls and automatic shutdown of air-handling units when conditions fall within predefined operating ranges.

The company has also deployed predictive tools using Energy Slip, which forecasts expected energy consumption based on past site performance and historical weather conditions, and Syncro, an automated system that checks data integrity across store control systems and equipment.

Woolworths says the programme has achieved more than 95 per cent data availability across approximately 2700 electrical submeters and maintained data accuracy above 95 per cent across more than 23,000 connected assets.

The company also reported predictive refrigerant leak analytics accuracy of approximately 70 per cent, enabling automated work-order generation without manual validation.

Leaks

Beyond energy savings, the company says the programme has reduced refrigerant leaks through predictive detection and targeted maintenance.

Automated work-order generation is done within the maintenance management system, improving response times without increasing administrative overhead. Food safety is improved through earlier identification of refrigeration issues, and maintenance outcomes are verified on a portfolio-wide basis.

Woolworths says its Energy Management Centre is now operating as a performance optimisation engine, managing the company's power use with "surgical precision," and helping reduce emissions and network costs.

The company already participates in Australia's Good Grid load reduction programme, and the New Zealand platform could support similar programmes here in the future.

The annual Energy Excellence Awards will be held in Wellington on 19 August. The Large Energy User Initiative of the Year award is sponsored by EECA.