With both energy costs and usage rising, it makes sense that businesses are interested in reducing energy consumption. This not only helps businesses save money, but also reduces their carbon footprint. But while business owners want to lower energy consumption, many find themselves asking the same question: what action (or actions) specifically reduces energy consumption?
The good news: with just a few straightforward solutions, you can rapidly reduce energy consumption at your business.
The proper solutions paired with expert implementation can lead to as much as a 30% reduction in energy consumption without any changes to your workflow or other sacrifices. In other words, you can start increasing your margins without requiring any changes at all to your current business processes.
That said, let’s take a look at 10 ways to reduce energy consumption.
The easiest way to reduce your energy consumption (and thereby save energy costs) is to simply be conscious of energy-saving best practices.
You can do simple things like avoiding peak times for energy-demanding tasks when possible. (You can determine peak energy times for most utility companies with a bit of research.) For example, peak energy times during summer are typically between noon and 6 p.m. During this period, the day is warmest and more businesses use AC to cool down.
You can also make use of natural light, and turning off the air conditioner when not strictly necessary are all great and easy actions that can make a pretty big impact on your next energy bill.
One of the best ways to reduce energy consumption in a building is to have an energy assessment done at your workplace.
This involves your Energy-Efficiency-as-a-Service (EEaaS) provider coming into your building and undertaking a thorough examination of your energy assets and business processes, identifying the best solutions, technology, and techniques to reduce the amounts of energy your business consumes.
Understanding what exactly consumes so much energy in the first place is critical to developing a more efficient and sustainable energy program. Making use of an energy monitoring and assessment system can help reduce total energy costs 5% to 25%.
With information provided by the energy audit, you’re easily able to identify ways you can improve your energy consumption baseline. And, by implementing IoT sensors, you’ll be notified immediately if there is a problem or business-critical appliances are performing poorly. With the power of continuous monitoring on your side, you’ll also be able to identify more ways to save.
While many EEaaS providers can offer some insight into where your energy is allocated in a given month, Budderfly provides a cloud-based portal that makes it easy to assess your energy habits. You’ll have access to monitoring, analytics, explanations of energy usage and how to save.
Make sure you work with a proven EEaaS partner to get up-to-date insights.
Technology that reduces your energy consumption is among the most effective ways to significantly bring down your power costs. Replacing your existing light bulbs, for instance, with high-quality LED lighting is an effective way to reduce energy usage.
While incandescent bulbs are cheaper upfront, LED bulbs more than make up the cost difference by being up to 90% more energy efficient than traditional bulbs and lasting much longer, leading to greater savings over time.
Additionally, you can replace other business-critical appliances, like your HVAC and refrigeration, with more energy-efficient operations. One way to determine if you’re choosing energy-efficient appliances is by looking for the famous Energy Star logo. Appliances with this logo meet strict energy standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
For example, according to the EPA, Energy-Star-certified refrigerators and freezers are up to 15% more energy-efficient than other models that meet the minimum federal standard.
Everybody deserves to be comfortable at work without teeth-chattering cold or sweat-inducing heat. Your HVAC can quickly eat into your energy consumption and leave you with a hefty bill at the end of the month.
Inefficient energy management costs commercial spaces, especially quick-service restaurants, hundreds of dollars every month. In fact, HVAC costs can account for as much as 35 percent of QSRs’ monthly energy bills.
With a few upgrades to your HVAC system, you can reduce your energy consumption significantly. Sounds expensive? There are ways to get all the upgrades you need at zero upfront cost.
As you’d imagine, many industries have specific energy requirements. Manufacturers, for instance, will have different needs than a restaurant that has to power a freezer for perishable goods.
That’s why you’ll want to find an EEaaS that has experience in your specific field, so they can better recommend solutions that will reduce your energy consumption.
For example, in the restaurant industry, the right EEaaS will be able to implement a variety of improvements and upgrades to your freezing unit in order to reduce the overall energy burden while still ensuring that your food stock is well preserved.
RSG/Norlake Budderfly Innovation from Budderfly, Inc. on Vimeo.Speaking of refrigeration, if you do operate a large freezer, there are a number of simple alterations that you can implement to ensure that you’re not needlessly wasting energy.
Avoid restocking during the hottest parts of the day, as the cool air stored in the unit will be replaced by the warmth outside. Additionally, you can pack large empty spaces with cardboard boxes to insulate the cold air. Speaking of insulation, inspect your freezer to ensure that it is sealed and there are no avenues for the cool air to escape.
Try to minimize opening refrigerator doors repeatedly during busy periods to reduce cooling loss.
Aside from upgrading your appliances, you can make use of a variety of technological enhancements, such as solar panels to more efficient power strips and other sources of energy. you can quickly see a significant reduction in your energy use.
Powering your business with solar panels can help you cut overhead costs, by sparing you dependency on the grid. You’ll also improve business uptime when you switch to solar panels—if there’s a grid outage, you have the power to keep operations running.
Another useful, common technology that’s easy for you to pick up are efficient power strips: Other than the obvious energy-saving bonus, many smart power strips come equipped with the ability to control appliances with a smart device like an iPhone. You’re able to maintain a granular-level of control over energy consumption at your business.
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Ready to learn more about saving on your business’s next energy bill? Find out more about the benefits of energy efficiency below: |
If you plan on installing equipment that can reduce energy consumption in a building - or even want to maintain a consistently low energy consumption level - you need to make sure that all your assets are functioning optimally.
With a few routine check-ups every so often (and maintenance when you suspect there may be a malfunction) you can not only prevent these assets from using an unnecessarily large amount of energy, but also avoid downtime that can cost your business thousands in a few short hours.
While there are many ways to reduce energy consumption in a building, at the end of the day, you’ll see the best results when partnered with experts.
An EEaaS firm will be able to assess your energy assets, provide a detailed plan for improvement, demonstrate value by projecting energy savings (and backing these projections up with monthly reports detailing your energy consumption changes), and overall make energy efficiency simple and frictionless to access.
What’s more, your EEaaS should be able to provide you with the technology you need with no upfront investment. They can manage and maintain your energy equipment upgrades, completely assuming the burden of equipment replacement. And you focus on what matters most: running your business.
Put simply, your EEaaS provider should make it effortless to save on energy and to save the planet- a win-win-win.
If you’re ready for your business to experience energy savings that can help both its bottom line and the planet, then you need to contact Budderfly.
We are one of the fastest-growing EEaaS providers in the United States because we deliver our clients effective, efficient, top-of-the-line energy solutions and energy-efficient products with zero upfront costs. This allows for a frictionless introduction of technology that will reduce energy usage.
We also make it easy to better understand your energy consumption habits with comprehensive reports. In addition, we will monitor and manage your efficiency equipment, so you won’t have to worry about technology failing or finding maintenance support - with Budderfly, we’ve got it all covered.
Join over 3,000 locations across 49 states that are saving on energy use with Budderfly, one of the fastest-growing EEaaS companies in the U.S. Contact us today.