SAVING ENERGY IS NOT REALLY COSTLY

By September 8, 2014blog

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First question that come to a facility manager’s mind is “How much will it cost?”

The basic energy efficiency projects costs next to nothing! First ingredient is “Commitment” at zero financial cost.

In a building, once the management has made the commitment, then comes planning on how to implement energy efficiency. This may cost a few 10’s of dollar to have meetings among the managers, building operators, building occupants, printing of notices to inform them of the commitment and seek everyone’s cooperation.

Adopting best practices for energy saving in Operations and maintenance, lighting, heating and cooling, office equipment etc. costs nothing more than some effort in changing work style. For example, set back heating/cooling controls when building is unoccupied. Turn off lights where not required. Turn off office equipment like copiers, printers when not in use.

With the savings obtained by above zero cost initiatives, the next stage of energy efficiency could be to implement low cost improvements. Examples – replacement of corridor lights with more efficient lighting, programmable thermostats for heating/cooling controls, occupancy sensors for light and heat/cool controls for areas of low occupancy.

Perform an Energy Audit and benchmark the building to get a clearer picture of where energy is wasted. On the average for every $ spent on energy (electricity, gas) something like 30 cents are lost as wasted energy and the task of energy auditor is to identify these areas and make proposals to reduce this waste.

In house staff could do an energy audit by which the management may save audit fee. However, internal auditing results in a compromise of normal business of the building and essential functions like maintenance may be overlooked resulting in more costly downtime repairs or replacements.

What is the cost of such audit? There are incentives by the Government offering upto 50% of energy audit and rebates on capital expenditure for energy improvement. So part of the costs are paid by incentives and the other part is paid by energy savings. Typically, an improvement which pays for itself in about 3 years or less is a good investment to implement.

New Dawn ES has knowledgeable staff and expertise to conduct energy audits, arrange for incentives where available and other finance options to assist in making your building more energy efficient, reduce carbon footprint of your building, improve the property value.

Visit us at www.newdawn-es.com and fill out the “Get a free assessment” form to get your energy efficiency projects underway.

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