In sectors like industrial foodservice, laundry, and hospitality, energy consumption is both a necessity and a challenge.
As electrical loads rise, so do costs! Plus, when usage exceeds 100 kW, businesses in Italy are required by law to install additional infrastructure, often at a cost of up to €70,000. For many, this creates a painful choice between investing in expensive systems or limiting operations.
Energietechnik Srl, based in Ovada (Italy), specializes in designing smarter, more sustainable alternatives. The company helps its clients – ranging from large-scale kitchens to laundry services – reduce energy needs and optimize usage peaks without compromising performance. But to scale their impact, they needed a flexible, connected solution capable of adapting to diverse environments and equipment types, while offering a reliable way to remotely monitor and control systems in real time.
“At first, we worked with standard PLCs,” explains Antonino Marturano, System Integrator at Energietechnik. “But we were constrained by vendor lock-in and limited connectivity. We knew we could do better.”
“We’ve created a cost-effective system based on Opta – with remote monitoring and control via Arduino Cloud – to help our clients run a 100-kW industrial kitchen at 49 kW. This avoids them having to install additional infrastructure that can cost up to €70,000, lowers their electrical bills consistently, improves their environmental impact, cuts the need for our on-site intervention by 90%, and provides the data needed to support optimization over time.”
– Antonino Marturano, System Integrator at Energietechnik
Energietechnik unlocked a new standard of intelligent energy control with their smart energy management solution.
Their compact solution – approximately the size of a shoebox, and just about 5 kilos or 10 pounds in weight – integrates Opta and Arduino Cloud to connect to equipment across an entire facility to monitor loads, manage inverters and generators, optimize switching cycles, and balance power usage with renewable energy sources.
At the heart of the system is Arduino Opta, chosen for its robustness, certified industrial-grade reliability, and open-source flexibility. “With Opta, we have clean relay contacts, a strong build, and compatibility with electrical panels,” says Marturano. “But above all, I love being able to program it using the Arduino language, based on C++. It opens up possibilities that traditional PLC environments just can’t offer.” The Arduino Cloud platform enhances the solution with secure remote access, monitoring dashboards, and real-time control from anywhere. This has dramatically reduced the need for on-site visits, cutting travel, fuel, and labor costs by up to 90% while offering clients more responsive support. And thanks to its open-source foundation, the system remains adaptable to any setup, without forcing customers into closed ecosystems. “That freedom is crucial,” adds Marturano. “We can build exactly what our clients need, without compromise.”
Eliminate vendor lock-in and customize systems freely
Reduce installation and maintenance costs with remote support via Arduino Cloud
Save end users thousands in infrastructure and energy costs
Accelerate time-to-market with flexible, easy-to-program hardware
Looking ahead, Energietechnik is exploring new wireless architectures – potentially based on LoRa®, Wi-Fi®, or powerline communication – to remove the need for cabling altogether.
They are also testing Portenta Machine Control as an alternative to Opta, especially where higher precision is needed. As Marturano puts it: “The real problem today isn’t the cost of electricity. It’s that the power grid can’t give us more than it already does. So, our mission is to use what we have as efficiently as possible. And Arduino is helping us do exactly that.” With installations already underway in England, Belgium, the Maldives, and Chile, Energietechnik is proving that compact, intelligent, and flexible energy solutions can go global, one efficient watt at a time.