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MOL · capability 02 of 08

Load profiles, heat maps and baseload analysis.

Electricity is obscure, intangible and invisible to almost everyone who pays for it. Presented properly, consumption data can be read at a glance by a facilities manager, and most faults in a building appear as a change in the shape of the load before they appear in the totals.

The load profile

The pattern follows what happens in the building: the shift starting, the chillers cutting in, the cleaners at ten at night. Anomalies are easy to see.

Coloured by tariff period, the profile also shows when energy is consumed, as well as how much.

Half-hourly demand profile by time-of-use periodHalf-hourly real power in megawatts, drawn as bars coloured by Megaflex time-of-use period (off-peak, standard and peak), with apparent power in megavolt-amperes overlaid as a line. Demand peaks at 85.2 megawatts. Maximum apparent power of 90.7 megavolt-amperes occurs at a power factor of 0.94. Every figure is listed in the Energy Analysis table beneath the graph.0255075100MW / MVAWed 24Thu 25Fri 26Sat 27Sun 28Mon 29Tue 3012:0012:0012:0012:0012:0012:0012:00
Peak demand (MW)Standard demand (MW)Off-peak demand (MW)Apparent power (MVA)9 intervals flagged suspect
Total energy
9,738 MWh
Maximum demand
85.2 MW
Maximum apparent power
90.7 MVA
Date of maximum demand
24 Jun, 08:30
Power factor at MD
0.94
Load factor
68 %
Eight days of half-hourly data from a single metering point. Account anonymised.

A month of half-hourly data on one chart.

A load profile shows one day clearly and a month poorly. The heat map places the day across and the time of day down, so a regular pattern and a one-off event look different.

Trading hours are clearly visible, as are a shift that starts an hour early on Fridays, plant left running over a long weekend, and the days when there was no supply at all.

Consumption heat map for June 2026One month of half-hourly demand for a commercial account. Each column is a day, each row a half hour of the day, and darker cells are higher demand, peaking at 37 kilowatts. Reading down a column gives one day's shape; reading across a row shows how the same half hour changes through the month.00:0006:0012:0018:00Time of day151015202530Day of month, June 2026
Lower Higher, up to 37 kW
A commercial restaurant account. One month, every half hour, one cell each. Account anonymised.

Necessary and unnecessary overnight load.

Baseload is what a site draws outside trading hours, and much of it does necessary work: refrigeration holding stock, security and emergency lighting, servers, pumps and frost protection. None of that is waste.

It sits alongside air conditioning left on, plant that starts three hours before anyone arrives, and lighting circuits that have been on for years. The figure that matters is how much of the out-of-hours cost is unnecessary.

MOL tracks the overnight minimum load against a target and shows the difference. Because baseload runs for every hour the building is closed, a small reduction is repeated several thousand times a year, which makes it the most reliably recoverable item in an energy budget.

Six views of the same data

Load profile

The half-hourly shape of consumption. Usually the first view opened, and the one in which a leak, an overnight load or a failed power-factor correction is most easily seen.

Heat map

A month on one chart, with the day across and the time of day down. It shows whether last Tuesday was unusual or whether every Tuesday looks the same.

Baseload analysis

The overnight minimum, tracked against a target, separating the load that must run from the load that need not. This is the most reliably recoverable item in an energy budget.

Period comparison

Month against month, in graph and table, for one account or a group of accounts.

Consumption comparison

Two sites over the same period, or one site over two periods. This shows whether an energy-saving intervention had any effect.

Daily and 3D analysis

A month shown as thirty small daily profiles, and the same data as an intensity surface across day and hour.

All of the views use the same validated interval data, so two views of a site agree with each other and with the invoice.

Next capability

Dashboards

Management, operational and site-level views. An overview of the whole estate for a financial director, and a queue of exceptions for the staff who resolve them.

The rest of MOL

Back to the MOL overview

See this applied to your own data.

PMT will run it against a month of your readings and show you the results.

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