Is your industrial business located within a unit on an industrial park? One that doesn’t keep its heat very well? One that uses a lot of lights and production equipment? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you’re probably using a lot of energy, and with that – your bills will be a lot higher than what you would like.

Reducing your energy costs might not be high on the priority list of your industrial firm, or even something you’ve had the time to consider, but if you start to take energy efficient measures now, you can reduce unnecessary energy loss and cut your energy bills.

Here are just a few simple measures that your industrial firm could take to reducing energy costs:

Heating

Whatever your heating method might be, in an industrial unit, it’s difficult to keep the heat – which means that through the colder months, you’re probably turning up that thermostat to compensate and to try to stay warm. I bet you’d be thinking a little differently about that if you knew that heating costs increase by around 8% for every 1 degree increase.

Rather than setting your thermostat to max, you should look into ways that can make your building warmer, and save you money rather than waste it. So what can you do?

• Seal any draughts, unused doors or flues
• Doors are not propped open for convenience
• Any radiators are free from obstructions
• Keep your boiler maintained
• Insulate all of your pipework.

The steps above are only minor and would cost you little, or virtually no money to implement, but would have large savings – and improve your working environment, boosting employee morale. Insulating your pipework for instance can reduce energy losses by up to 70% - just think how much money you could be saving.

Lighting

For many businesses, lighting is the most energy intensive – and can be responsible for up to 40% of a building’s energy usage.

At your industrial firm, having sufficient lighting is important, so turning off lights more often probably isn’t an option for you, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t reduce your energy usage through lighting. Here are a few steps that you can take to reduce your light energy use:

• If you’re not in the room, switch it off
• Install timers or sensors so that lights automatically turn off at certain times, or if there’s no activity taking place within an area
• Maximise the effectiveness of natural light by removing anything that could be blocking windows
• Don’t overlook your light maintenance
• You could even use light reflective paint on your walls.

A company implemented sensors into the store area and toilets of their business – this investment cost them £225 upfront. After three months, this investment had paid for itself, and they are now saving £813 a year and 5 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

This statistic shows, that even small changes can make big differences – while saving your industrial firm money would be great, cutting your carbon dioxide emissions is even greater.

Production and office equipment

Depending on the nature of your firm, there could be production equipment that you use on a daily basis that is wasting you energy and money. This combined with all of the technology that your office no doubt relies on, will be a large contribution to your rising energy bills.

One of the best ways to save money in this area is to switch it off, when not in use, and that doesn’t mean leave equipment on standby. If you leave something on standby, it will cost you around £1 per year for every watt of power that is used, and that all adds up. What else can you do?

• Keep your equipment clean. If it’s dirty, it will have to work harder to run correctly, which uses more energy and will cost your firm more money
• Monitor the energy consumption of all equipment to see if there are any that need replacing
• You could install timers on equipment to remove ‘human forgetfulness’ and ensure items are off when they won’t be in use.

If monitoring equipment highlights that there are pieces of equipment that need to be replaced, in terms of production, or in the office, research into more energy efficient models. While the upfront costs might be slightly more, the savings that they make over time will see the machine pay for itself. 

Renewable energy

While the solutions outlined so far in this blog are great, and would help your firm to reduce energy costs and save money – there are options out there that could make even greater energy savings, while also helping to enhance the image of your brand.

Investing in renewable energy can seem daunting, as the upfront cost is sometimes significant, however the benefits that renewable energy technology would bring to your business, far outweighs any initial costs. By making an investment, you have the ability to dramatically reduce your energy usage and your bills, you could even eradicate them all together.

If you’d like to learn more about the benefits that a renewable energy investment would bring to your business, download The Bowler Energy Guide to Saving Money on Your Energy Bills here.

Photo credit: Broo_am (Andy B)