The current situation
Rising energy prices in recent months continue to put pressure on business profitability. In particular, price volatility is a challenge, and the market will remain so in the medium to long term.
Although enterprises can’t control market prices, it is easy to reduce energy costs by taking immediate and low-effort energy efficiency measures.
However, it can be challenging to know where to start and how.
The first step is to have visibility into energy performance, and integrating energy data in one space is the way to do that.
Below are 4 energy-saving tips that will help you reduce energy costs immediately.
Bring together energy data from grid operators
A grid operator or, as it is sometimes called, distribution system operator (DSO), is a legal entity that creates the link between energy producers and consumers.
It has the responsibility for the safe and reliable operation of the electricity and gas grid infrastructure.
Furthermore, one of its main activities is installing smart meters and collecting consumption data.
It also provides this data when the building owner requests access to it.
Each grid operator has a different policy about how to provide this data.
Some are free and easy to manage, while others make the process more complicated.
However, our experience shows that energy data from a portfolio located in Europe can be easily integrated through grid operators.
Further reading: How Distribution System Operator helps to reach energy efficiency
Benchmark your sites
The energy consumption of similar buildings can vary greatly depending on how efficiently they are used.
Consider two stores that are similar in size, revenue, and number of employees, but the heating and cooling systems are running 24/7 for one of them.
If you put the consumption data of these two buildings together, you will see that one of them consumes much more than the other.
This comparison is very useful to identify the store that is not performing well: scaling this analysis to an entire portfolio will give you a clear view of the situation.
You can then prioritize the sites that require your immediate attention and implement an energy saving action plan.
You can be interested in: Why site benchmarking is the first item on your energy action plan
Further reading: How site benchmarking helped Aquafin optimization of wastewater treatment
Understand how much energy is consumed outside of working hours
A dedicated analysis of non-working hours – the time when an office, building, or store is closed – can reveal hard-to-notice energy waste and thus wasted money.
Lights left on, HVAC system idling or not correctly set….These small ”mistakes” contribute significantly to the amount you see on your utility bill.
Such inefficiencies can be immediately eliminated by leveraging your energy data.
Concretely, this translates into several ways to save energy with this data:
- Turn off systems that should not be running during non-working hours.
- Optimize the startup and shutdown schedule of your heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system.
- Standardize the reduction of light intensity.
Be alerted in case of abnormal consumption
When a building is used very efficiently, we expect energy consumption to have standard behavior.
This means that when the building is unoccupied, no energy is consumed (no lights on, no HVAC system running…), because no one is working and therefore there is no need to use energy.
This can be considered the expected behavior; on the other hand, if during non-operating hours energy is used (and therefore there is consumption), then the behavior deviates.
This deviation represents a consumption problem.
Being alerted when there is this deviation, or just before it occurs, allows intervention to prevent the situation from worsening.
In fact, anomalies are a wake-up call that something is not working as it should, and reacting means investigating where and when the abnormal consumption occurred, and taking active action to solve it.
However, at the basis lies the need to be notified in real-time of what is happening.
Alerts sent via e-mail or visible in weekly reports are a good way to keep on top of the situation.
Further reading: How The Hotel Brussels detected and reacted quickly to faults despite lockdown
Conclusion
In a nutshell, the current energy market situation is something no one could have expected, but its effects are spilling over to all companies.
As a company, you now have the opportunity to easily reduce energy costs through immediate and low-cost energy efficiency actions.
These behaviors are affordable and can be implemented right away with the help of an expert.
If you want to start as early as possible to analyze your consumption and costs, contact one of our energy experts now.
Start saving now, start saving smarter, with Energis.Cloud.
