Building Scalable, Intelligent Energy Solutions
Faith Technologies, a national leader in engineering, construction, manufacturing and clean energy, delivers innovative energy solutions tailored to provide reliable and clean energy through a division called EnTech Solutions. With proprietary energy modeling and optimization software, the company aims to give customers better visibility into their operations so they can achieve energy independence and resiliency.
From Siloed Systems to Scalable Infrastructure
Previously, Faith Technologies approached each customer project individually with project-specific solutions, requiring manual configurations and VPN setups. These siloed systems used various, sometimes incompatible tools from multiple vendors, resulting in inefficiencies, limited scalability, and ultimately reactive maintenance practices.
"Every site was treated as a blank slate," explained Steve Nieland, Vice President of Innovation at Faith Technologies. "This meant we had limited repeatability and faced significant challenges in reliably scaling our solutions. Each firmware update or site-specific modification risked disrupting the entire system."
Recognizing the need for a robust, unified data backbone to manage diverse data pipelines and enable real-time performance, Faith Technologies set out to build a scalable Industrial IoT platform capable of powering predictive maintenance and AI-driven insights.
Nieland explained their approach to developing the new solution. “We wanted to provide real-time data insights that allow our commercial customers to improve operational visibility, optimize performance, and maximize revenue generation. In order to do that we set out to develop an IoT platform that could enable remote monitoring, proactively detect issues, and leverage AI and machine learning to enhance predictive maintenance and support operational excellence."
Architecting Streamlined, Unified Data Management
Faith Technologies chose MQTT as a secure protocol for data transport, with HiveMQ’s enterprise-grade MQTT platform to handle data transmission due to its proven scalability, reliability, and comprehensive support services. HiveMQ’s rigorous stress-testing capabilities via HiveMQ Swarm assured the company that its infrastructure could support rapidly increasing data volumes and connections.
Todd Emelo, Cloud Development Manager at Faith Technologies, said, "HiveMQ is one of the few components that doesn't keep me up at night - it simply works. It’s reliable, easy to configure, and significantly enhances our deployment speed."
Over the past three-and-a-half years, Faith Technologies has evolved from a fragmented, manual approach to a streamlined, scalable architecture that supports rapid growth and AI readiness. "Our platform is continuously improving," said Nieland. "We've transitioned from a fragmented manual process to a streamlined, scalable architecture that supports rapid growth."
Power BI provides additional advanced visualization, while Ignition Enterprise currently handles notification processing. This integrated stack delivers end-to-end data management that is both robust and flexible, capable of growing with Faith Technologies’ expanding customer base and product offerings.
Improving Operational Efficiency and Delivering Customer Value
Today Faith Technologies offers customers an integrated platform delivering insights through a "single pane of glass" to view the health and performance of all the devices at a site. Users can immediately see data and visualizations on asset health, maintenance needs, and operational metrics.
"We moved from limited visibility and reactive responses to comprehensive, real-time data insights for proactive decision-making," said Nieland. "Customers can now prevent costly downtime, optimize energy usage, and enhance infrastructure reliability."
As a result, customers see tangible operational improvements, reduced maintenance costs, and extended asset lifespan. By centralizing monitoring and automating processes, Faith Technologies saves thousands of annual man-hours by eliminating the need for individual monitoring and troubleshooting at each site.
Faith Technologies currently monitors approximately 30 microgrid sites, aiming to scale up to 1,500-2,000 installations within five years - proving HiveMQ’s performance and scalability in mission-critical environments.
Future-Ready with AI and Machine Learning
Next Faith Technologies plans to incorporate AI and machine learning via Databricks to further enhance predictive analytics and diagnostics. HiveMQ provides the real-time data backbone enabling AI/ML which, in turn, will help to enable early detection of anomalies, optimize maintenance schedules, and minimize downtime.
"AI and machine learning will significantly enhance our ability to proactively resolve potential issues and take our offering to the next level for our customers," said Nieland.
