The following post will cover some energy efficiency tips that are often overlooked. While we all focus on upgrading incandescent lighting to CFLs and LEDs, or making improvements to our heating and cooling systems, we often forget there are less critical components to our building that waste energy and hurt our bottom line. We’ve put together four thoughts to help business owners take another look at their energy efficiency, and hopefully change the way we start looking at our building’s energy use.
Vending Machines
Vending machines use energy that most of us never consider. New specialized vending machine controls have been created to help tackle these energy wasters. Specialized controls are those that are designed for specific areas of your building. On average, a single vending machine without an internal cooling function can cost a business up to $300 annually. Vending machines stay plugged in at all times—even when not in use—to ensure product quality remains high. Specialized occupancy sensors, however, can be added to reduce costs on some machines.
Source: FacilitiesNet
Elevator Efficiency
A new study by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), found “Elevators and escalators make up 2 to 5 percent of the energy used in most buildings, but can reach as high as 50 percent during peak operational times.” New technology aims to reduce elevator and escalator energy consumption between 40 to 75 percent by reducing standby power, turning off lights and cab ventilation systems when not in use, upgrading to coated steel belts, and installing advanced dispatching software.
Source: Green Building News
Ceiling Fan Management
It is important to remember that fans cool people, not rooms. Fans can be used in different ways to produce various heating and cooling effects, but people primarily use fans for cooling. In the summer, fans are a great way to produce a cool breeze. In the winter, however, ceiling fans can be set to rotate clockwise, pushing warm air that accumulates near the ceiling down to warm up the occupied space. Churches with high ceilings are great examples of this type of energy saving management.
Source: EnergySTAR
Office Equipment Efficiency
Always turn off or put your machines to sleep before and after work hours. Your computer screens use a significant portion of your computer’s energy use. You won’t do any damage to your computer or waste any extra energy by turning it off and on, according to Bruce Nordman, energy efficiency researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Most desktops use between 65-250 watts, with an additional 15-70 produced by the monitor. Using an online energy calculator, we examined the hypothetical cost of leaving a computer on for 24 hours for 251 working days in the year.
Assuming 100 watts for the computer and 30 for the monitor, plus the current rate of 14.8 cents per kWh in Massachusetts:
24 Hours/251 Days
Cost Per Day $0.46
Cost Per Year $115.91
8 Hours/251 Days
Cost Per Day $0.15
Cost Per Year $38.63
Source: Energy Use Calculator
Under this assumption, your business could be losing $77.28 per computer annually.