Just signed a national retail chain with 420 locations. Overwhelming to know where to begin. Should I start with highest usage sites, oldest locations, or specific geographic regions? Client wants to see results quickly to justify the full audit scope.
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Prioritizing 400+ retail locations - where to start?
Beatrice, go for the low-hanging fruit first. Sort by monthly kWh usage and start with your top 50 sites. Those will have the biggest dollar impact and give you credibility for the full project. I did this approach on a 300-site grocery chain and found $85K in savings just in the first 25 locations.
Warren's strategy works great. Also look for sites in deregulated markets first - Texas, Ohio, Illinois. The rate analysis is often more complex but the savings potential is higher. Found $12K annual savings at a single Dallas location just on supply rate optimization.
Great advice both of you! I'll start with the top usage sites in deregulated markets. That should give me 75-80 locations to prove the concept. How long should I expect for data gathering phase on this many sites?