A focus on energy consumption means economic benefits for your company. Experience in many countries has shown that systematic focus on energy (energy management) can yield energy savings of up to 10% in the first year if findings are acted upon. If you can identify where and when at least 90% of your energy is being used and you can stop it being wasted due to a lack of control, you will be well on the way to make savings.
To start on this energy and money savings journey, you need data. Data is simply how much energy (gas and electricity kWh) am I using, when am I using it (dates/times) and how many £ is it costing me. This data can be found on your utility bills and if you have half hourly metering in place from your utility supplier, you can also request a complete profile of when you used that energy.
How can this data save me money?
If we look at a typical half hourly monthly electrical consumption profile for a commercial organisation we would see this graph of consumption (kWh) against date and time:
Looking more closely at the consumption at specific days and times may start to identify high consumption on a day and time when there should be low consumption, perhaps weekends or nights when there is no one around. Plant or equipment may have been left on or the building management system is no longer controlling on the parameters initially set.
Issues like these are just waste, costing you money and avoidably adding CO2 to the atmosphere.
Quite simply, the more data you have the more opportunities to identify cost and consumption savings. Adding sub meters to plant, equipment and even business departments will increase your understanding of where and when energy is being used and even who is responsible for using it. This provides you with more opportunities to introduce energy and cost saving measures with a good return on investment.
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