Data Driven Decisions
Overbury Enterprises have been able to increase the granularity of their energy usage data migrating from manual and quarterly to half-hourly data. As a result, Overbury are able to better identify what equipment and practices consume the most power, enabling them to increase energy efficiency and reduce costs.
Overbury Enterprises covers 1,565-hectares primarily producing cereals and sheep, in addition to this, the company provides property rental, drinking water and other services within the local villages. With such a diverse range of assets and operating procedures, they are constantly looking for new ways to improve their operations. Overbury’s farm manager Jake Freestone said that “At Overbury, we are constantly looking for the latest and most effective ways to manage the estate and optimize our operations. This often involves trialling new technologies and methodologies.” As a result, the company is involved with the AgriEPI centre and other projects that are all focused on innovation and making more informed, data-driven decisions.
Overbury Enterprises mirrored what an EU report described as the “two largest barriers to adopting data-driven decision making”, namely new equipment costs and retraining time. Even when the time and resourcing were available for upgrades, occasionally the infrastructure in place was simply not compatible with such an upgrade, which was the case for one of their main power supplies. Penelope Bossom, owner of Overbury Enterprises said that “we had aimed to use a smart meter in the main house, but due to compatibility issues it wasn’t possible. Manual readings didn’t allow us to get a good understanding of what was affecting our power usage and what the main power draws were. Without this information, we were broadly unable to make evidence-based decisions on how to make our energy usage more efficient. FreeUP’s technology, however, allowed us to bridge this gap and create the datasets we wanted from the infrastructure we already had.”
After deploying FreeUP technology to the main electric meter, Overbury were able to get hour by hour data on the amount of power they were using and are now mapping this usage over time. The dataset aims to have enough granularity to determine what equipment was creating the demand and allow Overbury to take steps towards reducing their overall energy usage.
Overbury have also chosen to deploy FreeUP technology to capture pressure fluctuations in the water supply they provide to the village. The aim is to provide Overbury with new insights into weather-pressure correlations and avoid future problems by identifying system bottlenecks. Penelope Bossom said that “the [pressure] data collected will be particularly valuable over the dry period when many gardens will be watered in addition to helping us build further trust and familiarity with the FreeUP system. As we anticipate using this technology later in the year to increase the efficiency of our irrigators, these applications are important in helping us to prepare for this larger-scale use and in identifying where they can add the most value.”
FreeUP is committed to maximising the value companies can derive from the infrastructure they already own and is delighted to be sharing this journey with Overbury. FreeUP hopes that these applications will inspire others in the sector to look at where data can add value and to consider their technology as a simple means to make this transition.
If you have decisions to make, let FreeUP’s automation and your knowledge guide you to the best outcome, with no downtime or lasting impact on your equipment.