In today’s business environment, where every establishment sees increased use of electronic devices that drive up power consumption, keeping track of your company’s energy costs is vital to saving money and increasing profit margins. The cost of electricity can be high, and it’s necessary to monitor usage to ensure maximum efficiency, more so for businesses that operate 24 hours a day.
Here are some tips for monitoring your business’s energy usage to ensure maximum efficiency and help you save money:
1. Invest In A Power Management And Monitoring System
Unbiased data-based decisions are necessary for a company to grow and develop. You can apply such a strategy to your energy consumption, too. Thus, to start monitoring energy usage, you must know what equipment you have in your business and the energy data you need. You can invest in devices that monitor the electricity usage of your business.
Suppose you want a clear picture of your electricity consumption, and you want a more comprehensive way to monitor usage, analyze data, and manage your energy use. In that case, you must consider using an electrical power management system or EPMS solution. This complete system is crucial in helping your company identify ways to save energy that significantly reduces utility bills.
2. Compare Your Usage With Your Peers
Typically, you need to have a baseline before you can do any monitoring tasks. Thus, look at your electricity bills in the past year and get your average energy consumption per month. You also need to consider if you’ve already enforced ways to make your commercial property more energy efficient. For instance, have you shifted to LED lighting in the workplace?
Once you know your company’s consumption figures, the next step is to perform energy benchmarking to help you see how your energy use compares to your industry’s standards. By comparing your energy data to the industry benchmark, you can measure the efficiency and competitiveness of your energy-saving efforts. You can analyze your energy usage to learn how much you can reduce your energy consumption and improve energy efficiency.
3. Be On The Lookout For Inefficiencies
Businesses are always looking for steps to improve sales and bring down expenses to boost profitability. If companies have low revenue or cash flow problems, one of the things they do to maintain bottom-line numbers is to look over the fixed and variable costs of doing business. Most costs that companies could reduce include utilities, mainly electricity expenses.
Business owners know that attaining efficiency can save money. With the help of an energy management system to analyze the data from their energy usage, small business owners can get a better picture of what’s wasted and what might need improvement.
An electric power monitoring and management software can look into equipment usage. For example, businesses can use information about which machines consume too much energy because they’re old or inefficient. It will also help you determine the right time to invest in new equipment. Suppose you find that outmoded or poorly designed equipment increases electricity costs. In that case, you can replace it with a more recent and efficient alternative to drive down your expenses.
4. Create An Energy-Saving Policy
Many entrepreneurs believe that the easiest, quickest, and most effective single solution for saving money and energy is to increase the power efficiency of their business through management and monitoring. A surefire way to achieve this goal is by engaging everyone in your team.
Thus, you can encourage your workers to be involved with your energy-saving objectives. It would be best if you had a clear policy to guide your organization on what to do. The following are some ways you can boost motivation and a positive attitude toward your company’s energy-saving efforts:
- Let your workforce know about energy-draining practices, such as setting the workplace temperature to excessively cold or warm levels, causing air-conditioning or heating costs to skyrocket.
- Inform employees that the company is monitoring everyone’s adherence to energy-efficient policies not to issue demerits but to help improve overall savings and efficiencies.
- Remind them of the energy efficiency policy by posting friendly reminders and tips in the pantry and other conspicuous locations around your plant or office.
- Let your employees feel they’re vital in company-wide endeavors by encouraging them to submit ideas and suggestions in line with your energy-saving policy.
- Make the effort personal by focusing not on the monetary savings but the policy’s environmental benefits. Moreover, show your people that following energy-saving policies at work will allow them to apply the same strategies to improve the power efficiency in their homes.
- Make your policy engaging and fun by sponsoring campaigns, annual fun activities, or interdepartmental awards.
The Bottom Line
Although some companies are more energy-intensive than others, most businesses would like to reduce their energy costs and emissions. One crucial step in improving energy efficiency and usage is proper monitoring and management of data.