Ten Inexpensive Ways To Cut Energy Usage In Your Building

Turning your building into a green space will increase your client-base and reduce your costs dramatically, and energy consumption is one of the easiest ways to begin saving money today!
Energy use in the form of electricity, natural gas, oil, and transportation can account for 30 percent or more of a company's operating budget making it the largest building expenditure. Commercial buildings add 20 percent to US greenhouse gas emissions every year. Here are ten important, yet simple things you can do to reduce energy consumption in your building right away without spending a lot of money.

1. Install programmable thermostats: These little devices are inexpensive and can regulate the heating and cooling your building automatically, saving you the hassle of manually adjusting them. Temperatures will be adjusted to use less energy when your building is vacant, thus saving you money every single day.

2. Install power strips: Hook up all of your electronic devices to power strips to make it easy for people to turn off computers, lights, appliances, and other energy-sucking items when they are not in use. Power strips are a cost-effective way to reduce energy consumption throughout your building.

3. Use energy-saving features on electronics: Computers, printers, and copiers often come with power-management features that allow them to be put into sleep mode or be shut off when they are sitting idle. Enabling these features is another way to automate energy savings on these power-consuming devices.

4. Maintain appliances: Keeping appliances such as refrigerators, freezers, air conditioners, and clothes dryers running well means they can perform more efficiently, thus saving you electricity. A regular maintenance schedule will keep these units in tip top shape, saving you water, energy, and money from month to month.

5. Reduce thermostat setting on water heater: Your tank-style water heater continually heats water whether or not it is required. Turning down the thermostat on the water heater even 10 degrees will cut energy costs by 3-5 percent. It also reduces corrosion and mineral buildup in your pipes and tank, which reduce maintenance costs.

6. Upgrade to energy efficient lighting: If your building has fluorescent lighting and is older than 10 years, more than likely the lamps in use are T12s. These lamps use more energy than the newer options such as T8s and T12s, both of which use significantly less energy. LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, are some of the newest options available in lighting. They are solid-state bulbs, which mean they are virtually indestructible and are mercury-free, and they're much more efficient than traditional incandescent bulbs. More to the point, LEDs use 50 percent less energy than conventional incandescent bulbs and last 100 times longer. While CFLs (compact fluorescents) don't achieve the spectacular savings of LEDs, they are tremendously more efficient and longer-lasting than conventional incandescent bulbs. Compared to regular bulbs, CFLs use between 60 and 85 percent less energy and last eight to 10 times longer. So upgrade your lighting today to these energy-saving lamps.

7. Automate lighting: Many light fixtures in a building can be controlled automatically, which, depending on the size of the building, occupancy patterns, and level of improvement, can result in overall electricity savings of 35-45 percent. Several automation options include infrared and ultrasonic devices, timers, and photo sensors.

8. Use Dark Sky Compliant, full cut-off exterior lighting: Nationwide, more than $1.5 billion worth of electricity is wasted on inefficient outdoor lighting designs, due in large part to outdated lamps and light pollution. A large majority of outdoor light fixtures for parking structures, public spaces, and streets use fixtures that allow light to shine up and out rather than down, wasting a huge amount of energy and creating hazards to wildlife. Dark sky lighting, or full cut-off lighting ensures light is focused toward the ground where it is needed, allowing you to use lower-wattage bulbs and save large quantities of energy.

9. Adjust thermostat settings for optimum energy savings: Making even slight changes toward the lower-energy temperature settings recommended by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can greatly reduce overall HVAC costs. According to the US DOE, for every degree you set back your thermostat for eight hours during heating season, you can save as much as 1 percent on your heating bill. Similarly, for every degree above 72 you set your thermostat during warmer weather, you reduce your cooling costs by 3 percent.

10. Choose ENERGY STAR products: The EPA ENERGY STAR program certifies many products, including computers, printers, copiers, appliances, air conditioners, and some HVAC systems. If you need to replace any of these items, look for the ENERGY STAR logo to save 10-50 percent in energy as well as lower water and paper consumption.
These low-cost, high-impact solutions are your ticket to saving money and lowering your greenhouse gas emissions quickly and effectively. If we all do our part, the combined impact is great, so get saving!

Seed Newsvine

Bookmark this article in your preferred program

Comments

Add Comment

Popular Articles in this cathegory

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.