UK Half-Hourly Data Audit — The Free Service That Saves £3-15k Before Solar

A half-hourly data audit is the single most valuable thing KMM does before designing your solar system. It pulls 12 months of your actual meter data (17,520 data points), reveals what you're actually consuming, and typically finds £3,200-£14,800 of annual savings before solar even goes on the roof.

What is a half-hourly (HH) data audit?

If your business uses more than 100,000 kWh/yr, your meter is automatically a half-hourly meter (HH meter, classes 05-08). It records electricity consumption every 30 minutes — 48 data points per day, 17,520 per year.

Your supplier has all this data. Most never share it unless you ask. An HH data audit means: pulling that data from your supplier (via your MOP — Meter Operator), parsing it, overlaying sector benchmarks, and identifying patterns.

What an HH audit actually reveals

Real findings from KMM customers in 2024-2025:

• Nottinghamshire food processor: identified 21:00-04:00 standby load 14% above stated process baseline. Caused by malfunctioning compressed-air leak. Fix saved £8,400/yr — before solar.
• Lincolnshire dairy farm: identified parlour cooling running at 03:00 when ambient was already 4°C. Replaced thermostatic control with adaptive control. Saved £3,200/yr.
• Shift-based manufacturing: an audit can show batch loads (ovens, compressors) running in the wrong rate window, and whether moving them frees capacity for new loads such as EV chargers.
• Hospitality: overnight load that should not be there — a pool heater or kitchen extract left running — shows up clearly in half-hourly data.

How KMM pulls your HH data

Three options, depending on your supplier:

1. Online portal export (fastest): if you're with Octopus Energy for Business, British Gas Lite, EDF Business, Drax — your portal has an "Export half-hourly data" button. Takes 5 minutes. We guide you through it.
2. MOP request (7-14 days): all other suppliers. We email your supplier on your letterhead requesting a 12-month HH data file (D0036 format typically). Takes 7-14 working days.
3. Smart meter direct (real-time): if you have a SMETS2 commercial smart meter we can read via the Smart Energy Code interface in real-time. Requires Loop or n3rgy auth setup. 24-48 hours.

What we do with the data

1. Parse 17,520 data points into kW load curve by half-hour
2. Overlay seasonal patterns: winter vs summer, weekday vs weekend, lockdown anomalies if pre-2022 data included
3. Identify baseload anomalies: what's running at 03:00 that shouldn't be?
4. Identify peak-shift opportunities: what can be moved to cheap-rate windows?
5. Identify tariff mismatch: are you on the wrong tariff for your actual usage pattern?
6. Model solar self-consumption: against your real demand curve, not against an industry estimate
7. Model battery sizing: what kWh battery captures the peak demand without over-spec
8. Bound the proposal: system size, battery size, expected self-consumption, payback — all from your real data

Why most solar installers skip HH data audit

Honest answer: it takes 6-8 weeks of analyst work per project. Door-knock crews paid on commission cannot afford to spend 6-8 weeks on a project they may not win. So they don't bother. They pitch from a kWh figure on an old bill, estimate generation, multiply by your grid rate, divide by capex. Job done.

The error in that approach is typically 22-29% on payback. Self-consumption is wrong, tariff modelling is wrong, peak-shift opportunity is missed. The result is a solar system that under-performs the sales pitch — and a customer who blames solar when really it was the pitch that was wrong.

KMM is a working consultancy. We do the audit. It takes 6-8 weeks. It is free to UK businesses that engage us for a fully funded survey.

FAQs — UK Half-Hourly Data Audit