How do you get smarter with energy? It’s all in the how, when and what. Let me explain in 5 minutes.
Regardless of the size of your energy footprint, improving energy management is one of the most cost-effective strategies to gain business advantage. But what is “energy management”? Quite simply, it’s about getting smart about energy: how you get it (how you generate it, where you buy it, how much you pay for it); when you use it (what times), and what you do with it (efficiency of your loads / appliances)..
In many commercial cases, energy management has been overlooked for years in favour of reducing costs of materials or wages or other operational expenditure. The emergence of cheap renewable energy systems has raised awareness of the ability to reduce these costs, but after they’re implemented, where to next?
Renewable energy systems create a cheap source of electricity, however rarely can they supply 100% of requirements (how to get your energy for business advantage will be discussed in future articles) and renewables also do not increase the energy efficiency of your operations. This “what” is where most organisations can significantly decrease costs without breaking the bank.
Increases of efficiency don’t happen by chance. Increasing energy efficiency within an organisation requires knowledge of “what” you’re currently using your energy to do and a clearly defined plan for improving efficiency by doing it better – with benchmarks, targets and timelines.
Getting knowledge happens through Energy Audits – an analysis of how your business uses energy so you know where you’re at to begin with. The plan bit which we call Energy Management Plans (EMP) is the road map to achieving business advantage from energy. Sometimes an EMP will include an energy audit within its scope.
Enigin uses a 4-step process to develop a tailored EMP for our clients:
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