Energy Costs

Load Profiling: How to Map Your Business Energy Use Before Going Solar

Guide · Commercial solar & battery · ~5 min read

Before you put a single panel on the roof, you need to know how your business actually uses power across the day, week and season. Load profiling is the groundwork that stops you over-spending on kit you don't need or under-sizing a system that can't keep up.

What a load profile actually is

A load profile is a picture of your electricity demand over time, usually plotted across a typical day and across the seasons. It shows the peaks, the troughs and the steady base load that runs whether you're busy or not.

For solar, this matters because the sun produces most of its energy in the middle of the day. If your demand is heaviest in the early morning or after dark, raw solar alone won't cover it, and that's where battery storage and AI-driven arbitrage start to earn their keep.

• Base load: the constant draw from fridges, servers, standby equipment and lighting
• Peak demand: the short bursts when heavy machinery or HVAC kicks in
• Daily shape: when your usage rises and falls across operating hours
• Seasonal shift: how heating, cooling and production cycles change the picture

Where to find your usage data

The quickest starting point is your electricity bills. They tell you your total consumption and often split it by time-of-use periods, which hints at the shape of your demand. For a commercial site with an interval meter, you can request detailed interval data from your retailer, which gives a far more accurate view.

Bills alone rarely tell the whole story though. Averaged figures hide the short, sharp peaks that drive demand charges, so it's worth going deeper where the data allows.

• Recent electricity bills across different seasons
• Interval or smart meter data from your retailer
• Time-of-use tariff breakdowns
• Any existing energy monitoring or building management system logs

Mapping demand against your operations

Numbers only mean something when you line them up against how the business runs. Walk through a typical day and note what's switching on and when: compressors, pumps, cool rooms, ovens, chargers, office HVAC and so on.

This exercise often reveals surprises. A site might assume its heaviest draw is during production, only to find overnight refrigeration or morning start-up spikes are the real cost drivers. Understanding this tells you whether solar, storage or a combination is the better fit.

• List major loads and their typical run times
• Flag equipment that starts up with large inrush demand
• Note shift patterns, seasonal production and weekend operation
• Identify loads that could be shifted to daylight hours

Why peaks and base load drive your system design

Commercial tariffs often charge for demand as well as consumption, meaning a brief spike can carry a cost well beyond the energy it uses. A load profile lets you see those peaks clearly so the system can be designed to shave them.

Base load matters too. A steady overnight draw is a strong case for battery storage, because it can be charged on cheap daytime solar or off-peak grid power and discharged when rates climb. This is exactly where AI-driven energy arbitrage comes in: the battery charges when power is cheap and discharges or exports when it's dear, working your tariff rather than just offsetting it.

Turning your profile into the right-sized system

Once the profile is clear, sizing becomes a practical exercise rather than guesswork. We can match solar generation to your daytime load, add storage to cover evening and overnight demand, and set up arbitrage to make the most of your tariff structure.

ATI scales systems from 6.6kW right up to the megawatt range, so the same profiling approach works whether you're a single workshop or a large industrial rooftop like the 415kW install we delivered at DB Santasalo in Bulli. The profile keeps the design honest, so you pay for capacity that actually earns its place.

• Match solar output to daytime demand
• Size storage to cover evening and base load
• Configure arbitrage around your specific tariff
• Leave headroom for future expansion if your load is growing

The next step

You can get a long way with your bills and a good walk-through of the site, and it's worth doing before you talk to any installer. But the most accurate profile comes from proper interval data and a set of eyes that knows what to look for.

Our in-house, CEC and SAA accredited team handles this as part of a site review, with no subcontractors in the mix. If you'd like us to map your energy use and show you what solar, storage and arbitrage could realistically do for your operation, get in touch for a site review. Real figures always come from looking at your actual site, tariff and network.

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