Tips on Reducing Your Winter Energy Bills
FREE energy audit as a part of grant funding programme to help make your workplace more energy efficient.
FREE energy audit as a part of grant funding programme to help make your workplace more energy efficient.
With winter knocking on the doors, businesses will soon feel the pinch of extortionate energy costs, which is imminent. While many of us have already taken measures to keep our bills in control, many out there still need assistance and are wondering what they could do to keep their bills in control whilst ensuring their business runs as usual and staff remain warm and comfortable.
With high energy bills in the past few years, reducing business energy costs is even more critical. If you aren't already considering how to reduce usage, you could be missing out on significant opportunities for cost reduction.
Being energy efficient can also help lower your business's carbon footprint, which is excellent for the environment and planet!
Now that we are here, below are some helpful tips on saving energy that will not be heavy on your pocket.
Think like this: you cannot get your disease cured if you don’t go to the doctor, or worse, skip your medicines. Similarly, you cannot reduce your energy costs if you don’t know the loopholes where you are losing your money. The purpose of doing an energy audit is to identify areas of your business where energy use has a negative financial impact on your company, with solutions on how to save energy and reduce bills.
A good energy audit will present the information in an easy-to-understand way and suggest actions that your business can take to reduce your energy usage.
They typically take between 4 and 6 hours, although this does depend on the size of your building. A few commercial energy suppliers offer energy audits for FREE as part of their business offering. It is worth checking if you can get one from your current supplier.
Alternatively, if your business is located in the Black Country /Worcestershire/Marches/Staffordshire/Herefordshire. In that case, you can receive a FREE energy audit from us at Pro Enviro and an opportunity to apply for grant funding for your business.
Switching to a cheaper provider is one of the easiest ways to cut energy costs and save on energy. Yet, it's shocking that as many as 1.3 million businesses might lose out on better deals by staying with their current supplier.
Nowadays, suppliers offer different tariffs, and some even offer different rates for use at certain times. Therefore, it's worth researching different suppliers and choosing one that's right for your business.
Remember, although finding the cheapest deal is essential, many suppliers offer various perks and services, such as FREE energy management software, so it's worth looking at what all the suppliers have to offer before deciding.
Many businesses have already switched to LEDs in their business units and factories to save on energy bills. However, there are still many missing out on huge savings. Replacing incandescent/fluorescent lightbulbs with LEDs is an example of saving a little bit in many places, which can make a massive difference in your energy bills and help you save energy.
LEDs use over 75% less energy than incandescent lighting. They also don't burn out like halogens or incandescents, meaning that with normal usage of six to eight hours a day, your LED bulbs could last for 15 years!
LEDs are fantastic because they save you money on your energy bills and the cost of replacing broken bulbs. Lighting projects also tend to have a relatively short return on investment period and a low initial expenditure. This makes an LED refit a great place to start saving money. Governments worldwide have already passed measures to phase out the production of incandescent lightbulbs, so you will only be able to buy more efficient alternatives soon.
A part of the Black Country and other grant funding programmes is that you could get grant funding for energy saving measures like LEDs and renewable energy resources. Read More here on this page.
Motion sensor lights are a great lighting solution for use inside and outside the office. As their name suggests, they automatically turn on when they sense movement within a particular area, such as warm bodies or moving objects.
Humans and mammals generally have a warmer temperature than their surroundings. So when they pass the motion sensor light’s field of view, it detects this heat energy, and the motion sensor light switch turns on for a certain period.
Sensor technology is critical to their functionality. Motion-activated lights use microwave or passive infrared (PIR) sensors that detect movement. This makes either option ideal for indoor and outdoor high-traffic areas and low-traffic rooms like utility closets.
The benefits of using them are that they help reduce energy usage and lower electricity costs. They help save energy costs by lowering kilowatt-hour usage and avoiding wasting energy in periods of sufficient natural light.
Although it's convenient to leave electrical devices such as printers on standby, the amount of money it costs businesses yearly is staggering, resulting in a waste of electricity and energy.
Almost every electrical appliance still consumes energy when they're in standby mode. The Energy Saving Trust found that the average UK home wastes £86 a year by leaving appliances on standby, so imagine what this means for your business.
Switching equipment off at the plug is the best way to avoid unnecessary costs. An effective strategy here is to assign responsibility to someone to ensure all electrical appliances get switched off at the end of the workday.
Electrical appliances with poor energy ratings could cost your business a fortune. We don't recommend replacing them with perfectly decent electrical goods right away, but we recommend changing them to efficient models once their time is up, which is how you can save on energy.
In Europe, all electrical appliances are graded based on their efficiency, which is determined by the amount of energy the device uses each hour. The lower its consumption, the better the grade, with A+++ being the best and G the worst. Highly efficient appliances often cost a little more upfront. Still, the additional energy savings mean you should soon see a return on investment.
Additionally, repair leaking faucets and equipment. A dripping hot water faucet can leak hundreds of gallons per year.
A programmable thermostat is one of the easiest ways to lower your business energy costs. It can make heating and cooling much more straightforward by adjusting the temperature of your workplace by following rules that you set.
Some models even let you do it remotely. With a programmable thermostat, you can make sure the heating is off when the office is empty such as on the weekends. You could even schedule the heat to turn on just before people arrive and off, about an hour before they leave.
Some smarter devices also allow you to set a temperature at which the heating gets turned on to ensure you never waste energy when you don't need to. If you already have a programmable thermostat, maybe it's time to think about reviewing the controls. If you could lower the average temperature in your workplace by just 1 degree Celsius, you could save up to 10% on your heating bills!
In well-insulated buildings, less warm air escapes during the winter, and less cool air escapes during the summer. Although you may think the light breeze in your office isn't a big deal, it's pretty much energy, and therefore money, flying straight out of the building.
Proper insulation reduces the amount of energy required to maintain the preferred temperature of your workplace. There are some expensive and time-consuming measures you could take here. For example, you could invest in cavity wall insulation or upgrade your window glazing. But, one of the simplest things you can do to ensure your workplace is well insulated is to invest in some weatherstripping. Weatherstripping can reduce your heating and cooling bills by as much as 30% and is relatively easy to apply. As a bonus, they can also get rid of those annoying draughts.
Don’t panic; we're not saying you must stop drinking tea and coffee. However, the amount of money Britons waste yearly from overfilling the kettle is staggering.
When you overfill the kettle, extra energy is required to heat a greater volume of water. The Energy Saving Trust estimates that this collectively costs Britain £68 million annually. Encouraging everyone in the office to be sensible when making hot drinks will save you a surprising amount on your energy bills.
One of the most challenging things about business energy management is that you're usually not the only person in the building. Therefore, you can act efficiently, but you're unlikely to see a significant impact if you don't educate and involve everyone else. Encouraging others to be energy efficient can be difficult, but check out Action Renewables' useful guide for more information.
In addition, it’s advised to conduct a nighttime audit to find out what’s on after hours that shouldn’t be. This way, you can end up saving a lot more.
Maximise daylighting. After all, sunlight is free! Open or close blinds to make the best use of natural daylight and take advantage of skylights or other natural daylight sources to reduce lighting during daytime hours.
It’s advised to turn off lights when not in use or when natural daylight is sufficient. This can reduce lighting expenses by 10 - 40%. Additionally, if you can use task lightinbg where possible, that’s even better.
Also, removal of unnecessary lamps in over-lit areas is advised.
Conclusion: If you are a business and need help reducing your energy bills, get in touch with us at Pro Enviro Ltd, and we will be happy to help you. Alternatively, if you are looking for grant funding opportunities, visit us here.