The best time to invest is 5 years ago. The second best time is today. If you didn’t budget for investment in energy efficiency last year, don’t make the same mistake this year!
All too often we see companies or government organisations eager to progress and reduce their ongoing expenditure on electricity or energy, but when the time comes to implement energy efficiency upgrades the budget isn’t available until the new financial year. With some energy efficient solutions providing a return on investment within 2-3 years, the cost benefit of delaying until the new financial year can be significant.
If you haven’t thought about energy efficiency for a while and notice that your bills are steadily increasing along with the cost of electricity, it should be a warning sign that investment is likely to be required soon to counter these increases and save your company money which is better spent elsewhere.
Even if energy efficiency solutions have previously not had projected returns under your benchmark return on investment hurdle, the technology in this field advances at such a significant rate that there’s a good chance that next year they will. This is a double-edged sword, as often there’s a ‘paralysis by analysis’ scenario, where no action is taken as next year everything will be cheaper. While there is a chance that this can happen with a significant technological breakthrough, history tells us that this isn’t the case. People 5 years ago who installed PV systems paid 3-4 times more than they would now. The difference is, those people have already got their money back and are ahead of everyone who didn’t invest.
If you are feeling the pain of increasing energy costs, include energy efficiency solutions in your 2017/18 FY budget. How much should you put aside? Well, that depends on a number of factors. If you want some guidance as to how much is the right amount to start putting aside, get in contact with us and we can point you in the right direction.
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