Take the health check now
Welcome! Just answer the first question below to start your organisation's free energy health check. The form will give you tips and info as you go along. There are no right or wrong answers and there's no obligation whatsoever.
Once you have completed the check, you can print this page to take the results away with you.
Your guests' behaviour will make up the large part of your daily energy consumption and therefore potential wasted energy. Communicate and demonstrate your good environmental awareness and you will positively influence their behaviour. Have you considered posting notices and incentives to guests to alert them to good energy usage and clearly stating your hotel's environmental aspirations and credentials?
For an immediate impact, focus on you air conditioning and heating units in conference suites. We often find them working at the same time! Arriving guests warm up a room with their body heat. Set heating to switch off or lower 20 minutes after their arrival, rather than encouraging them to turn on the air conditioning when they get too hot.
In a business where production dominates, your energy usage will peak at one point in the day (looks like a volcano). You should focus on 2 key areas:
1) Minimum demand, often referred to as 'base load' -- this is consumption you use out of working hours. It may surprise you to hear that out of hours usage consumption for some of our customers has been as high as 50% of daily usage. Clearly at night we have more lights on but the key culprits are machines on standby, compressors still working or air conditioning units turning over.
2) Put some attention on the night shift -- we have found significant savings for companies who have monitored late night usage and mapped against production. Usually there is less management around so night shifts can tend to leave machinery running longer on idle than during the more managed environment of daytime. Engaging night shifts to adopt energy management is crucial to controlling consumption.
Your employees' behaviour will make up a large part of your daily energy consumption and therefore potential wasted energy. Most offices demonstrate a 'top hat' profile rising around 7am, peaking between 10am and 4pm then tailing off around 7pm. If you communicate and demonstrate good environmental awareness you will positively influence your employees' behaviour. Have you considered posting notices, incentivising employees to good energy usage and clearly stating your organisation's environmental aspirations and credentials?
For immediate impact focus on Friday consumption. This 'energy saints day' is a good benchmark against other working days since behaviour improves as employees intentionally turn off devices for the weekend. Have an 'every day is Friday' internal communications campaign.
Whilst you want your students to be aware of energy consumption, you don't have the luxury of allowing them to take the iniative in case it disrupts the running of lessons. Therefore consider creating a 'lights off' campaign for empty rooms.
For an immediate impact focus on whether you are heating and lighting unoccupied rooms, leaving outdoor lighting (especially flood lights) on too long and whether your classrooms are using both heating/air conditioning at the same time.
Schools that run evening classes for the public must keep a close eye on night-time usage. The public may not be as engaged in your energy saving initiatives as your staff and pupils, so it is worth creating a highly visible energy awareness campaign for all visitors to your site. Have you considered posting notices educating them in good energy awareness and clearly stating your schools environmental aspirations and credentials?
As a retailer you can expect that around 40% of your electricity costs will come from lighting your shop. Of course this is essential for the success of the shop during opening hours, so for an immediate impact focus on night time security by obtaining a good balance for well positioned external lights against having a volume of fluorescent lighting in the store.
Most Leisure Centres have two meters; one for the pool and one for the main site consumption. Start by focusing on the non-pool meter and look at the daily profile pattern. Focus on three areas:
1) Flood lights outside at night -- often these remain on long after they are needed.
2) Heating & cooling conflict -- this is where air conditioning is working flat out to cool down over heated rooms such as the cafes, reception or changing rooms.
3) Review your energy usage between 5pm and 11pm -- map out against your customer capacity or activities on site at these times. Too often sites are left consuming energy when customers have left, e.g. squash court lighting and empty gyms with all the plasma screens on.
The energy consumption for your call centre will vary greatly depending on the number of hours it is operating. Like any office environment your employees' behaviour will make up a large part of your daily energy consumption and therefore potential wasted energy. If you communicate and demonstrate good environmental awareness you will positively influence your employees' behaviour. Have you considered posting notices, incentivising employees to good energy usage and clearly stating your organisation's environmental aspirations and credentials?
For an immediate impact focus on air conditioning temperature settings, monitors left on when not required and unnecessary lighting usage from evening onwards.
Most people think that production based energy consumption is easier to identify but harder to make savings, due to the limitations of the machinery involved. However, this is not the case. Even in process related industries, a key factor to saving energy is human behaviour. It is how, when and why people use the machinery that will determine how much we use.
Action: monitor weekly or monthly kW/h consumption and plot against production patterns to see if you can spot correlations.
In an office environment the key challenge is to get your colleagues consciously to be aware of how they consume energy in what they do. One small printer turned off will not change the balance sheet, but one well conveyed and sustained message of energy awareness will generate a ripple effect of multiple activities and ideas to achieve savings.
Action: create and energy saving initiative report back to the business monthly how much energy you use in kW/h or CO2.
In a business of this size, communication lines are short so you can probably establish energy awareness easier than larger organisations. Many energy saving actions cost little or nothing to implement.
Action: request a free copy of our '44 Tips to save Energy in the Workplace' booklet'.
A business of your size may have delegated energy saving responsibilities to a member of your senior management, e.g. Production Director, Facilities Manager or Financial Director. After all, you believe that they need top level commitment to achieve their aims. Our experience shows that this is not necessarily the most effective approach. Because it is subsidiary to their main responsibilities it will be difficult for a high level manager to give energy saving initiatives a priority. Occasionally energy saving may even appear to conflict with those responsibilities.
Action: find and use key influencers in your business to 'sell' energy saving messages. These people do not have to be senior management; passion is more important than status. Reception staff are such example of great internal communicators when backed by management.
A business of your size may have delegated energy saving responsibilities to a senior manager. After all, you believe that they need top level commitment to achieve their aims. Our experience shows that this is not necessarily the most effective approach; it requires a behaviour change throughout the entire organisation. Sites of your size will benefit from adopting an energy efficiency mindset in your regular operational meetings.
Action: create frequent consumption graphs to display on notice boards for all employees to see in kW/h or CO2. You can start just by checking your bills.
In a business of your size you may have delegated energy measurement activities to a current member of staff, e.g. Production Director, Facilities Manager or Financial Director. You may even employ an Energy Manager. Our experience shows that except in the smallest of organisations (less than 50 people) one person cannot instigate major behaviour change without the support of the rest of the senior management. Sites of this size should create an Energy Team, using representatives from the whole business, to carry the message. The key to success with your site is establishing and securing energy saving messages.
Action: establish an Energy Team committed to spreading the message - save our energy - save our money - save our jobs - minimise our impact on the environment. Enshrine these statements in the ethos of the organisation.
Standard working hours make it easier to identify consumption variations, but be aware that your site is using energy during the 2/3 of the time that it is closed.
Action: focus on should be out of hours lighting, mid afternoon lighting (is it necessary?) and air conditioning units.
Mixed shift patterns may make it harder to map out a pattern of usage but longer occupancy hours do allow better control of consumption.
Action: focus on shift change over periods, lunch and the end of the last shift where staff numbers may be lower but consumption can be proportionally higher.
Full day shifts benefit by having people on site to manage energy but may waste more during the night time and early hours. Our experience shows that often lesser staff numbers overnight consume more energy per head than their daytime colleagues. Usually there is less mangement around so night shifts tend to leave machinery running longer on idle than during the more managed environment of daytime. Engaging night shifts to adopt energy management is crucial to controlling consumption.
Action: establish an Energy Team per shift to draw up a list of saving energy actions the shift can take.
As a Half Hourly customer you should be benefiting from a wider range of available tariffs, but you're also constrained by Maximum Demand limitations. Many companies either exceed their capacity amounts resulting in extra charges from the supplier, or have a capacity allowance much higher than required, therefore paying for unneeded capacity.
Action: we would suggest that you periodically review your maximum demand and check how close you come to reaching capacity.
If you pay a monthly bill you are regarded as a Half Hourly customer and are given a limit of how much energy you can reach. Many companies either exceed their capacity amounts resulting in extra charges, or have a capacity allowance much higher than required, therefore paying for unneeded capacity.
Action: get a recent copy of your energy bill and look for the initials MD (Maximum Demand) on the bill. This should give an indication of how much your consumption has peaked during the month. Compare this to your charges on the bill which should explain what your MD allowance is. If there is a wide gap it will be worth considering a review. Be careful not to make a rush decisions; consider during which months you will use the maximum demand capacity and check those bills too before making any decision.
Go on to the next question.
It may help you to log your consumption each month or quarter and report back the business on usage. It is only a basic analysis but the data is available on your bills and it will give you a starting point to investigate where savings may be made.
Excellent. If you are recording your usage, you should then have a broad idea what you are using each month and may be able to map your usage against production, staff numbers, etcetera. This is a useful activity and should be used as a wide communication tool to your business.
Quite often the key issue is finding the time. Try asking yourself, "How much time can it take to start and what do I need to do?" The best place to start for you is to look back over the last 12 months of your bills and review your consumption for each month and evaluate it against output and/or staff numbers. GAIA can also provide a booklet of simple tips to help you get started.
The fact that you are aware of your energy consumption is a good start. Now you need to put a programme into action. Do this by seeking quick wins. Searching for an area of exceptional energy waste is laudable but nowadays it is unlikely that you'll find huge wastage. Finding many small wastages is more likely and will have greater long term impact. The key to long terms energy saving is to involve everyone in your business through a programme of energy saving initiatives or projects.
Well done! You're well on your way to getting your business to benefit from lower energy costs and reduced carbon footprint. The key is to sustain your achievements. Staff turnover, new initiatives and technology can push up consumption again so ensure you have a mechanism to track your progress and communicate energy consumption patterns to your staff frequently and so keep it on the top of your agenda.
