There are now more than 50,000 Wattwatchers devices out in the field across Australia and the world. But what does this company do?
Wattwatchers is a New South Wales-founded Australian company that started by offering behind-the-meter measurement for residential solar installations in 2007 – and now it offers a cost-effective and very accurate meter that can also be used to provide visibility to commercial buildings’ carbon footprint and energy use, allowing for carbon accounting and energy optimisation.
The auditor devices allow both consumers and businesses to optimise energy usage, and portfolio managers to access both building-by-building and portfolio views of their performance, which can then be compared against benchmarks, targets and energy optimisation criteria.
Mark Dunn, who has been Wattwatcher’s chief executive since December 2024, now leads a “small but mighty” team of 15 people across Australia.
He says the services have helped owners of all asset classes access data, find excessive energy use outside the buildings’ operating hours, and for portfolios, they can single out the buildings with higher energy density per square meter compared to others.
“What’s nice about it is that when we deliver this service, customers gain visibility into their greenhouse gas emissions,” says Mark.
And the best part is that the service generally pays for itself – thanks to energy savings of up to 20 per cent, and for business owners, using the data to measure compliance with frameworks such as Australian Sustainability Reporting Standards (ASRS), NABERS, Green Star, and GRESB.
While designed and manufactured entirely in Australia, Wattwatchers devices are now delivered domestically and globally to regions such as Europe, Africa and parts of Asia – the devices have been installed in over 40 countries globally.
Over the years, the group experienced significant demands from landlords and building owners to monitor electrical energy use for compliance and mandatory climate reporting.
Wattwatcher’s auditors can be quickly installed as submeters throughout buildings. They rely on an induction coil that wraps around electrical cables to measure energy and communicate information through a cellular network directly to the cloud.
This allows the sub-system to measure the tenants’ electricity use without needing permission from the metering provider, and it will continue even if the energy retailers change. The information captured will provide owners with real-time updates that will form their scope three emissions.
Additional advantages include performing “what if” calculations to determine the optimal size for a solar system or batteries needed to support your house or building.
