How Can You Tackle Energy Waste?

Having a different approach to energy consumption and changing how we operate to reduce wasted energy is the best method for saving money and improving business competitiveness. As an example, implementing better controls on a steam boiler will save you 15% of energy consumption.

Behaviour changes the Irish solution to an Irish question. What do you do in an office where the air con is humming away the heating pumping through the radiators? You open a window! Improved or intelligent control of heating and cooling will achieve 22% reduction in energy wastage. Don’t rely on your BMS as it is very often the biggest culprit of energy waste.

Multi-site business coffee shops, newsagents, grocery stores, etc. one change in behaviour achieved €490 saving per month in just one store.

The majority of waste and over spend on energy comes from simple poor practice and bad controls. A perfect example is the control of storage heating. Storage heating is often on from September to May. Every night, even when the facility is empty on Saturday or Sunday, or as we saw this in March temperatures hitting 20 degrees for a full week and the storage heating was still consuming massive amounts of energy every night. The solution is simple remote override subject to local conditions and good timer / scheduling control.

The biggest obstacle to a company not saving on energy usage is lethargy! Don’t do anything and just keep on doing what you are doing! The problem will not go away… but it’s not a nagging problem and when you do have to do something to cut cost, it is often too late for a business to save the millions wasted every year. My advice is do something about it, get active and add energy to your monthly management meeting agenda. Make it an important topic for the security of your business.