3 Ways To Improve The Energy Efficiency Of Your Office Building
Posted on: 24 February 2016
Utility costs for your office building can drastically cut into your bottom line by the end of the fiscal year. Managing individual energy usage in an office environment can prove nearly impossible, especially as employee counts reach the double digits and beyond. Instead, you must focus on upgrading your office space with technologically advanced systems to bring utility costs back down to manageable levels. Here are three smart ways to improve the energy efficiency of your office building with focused technology.
Solar Panel Arrays
With solar panel arrays, you can directly produce a large portion of the power used throughout your office building instead of pulling it from the public power grid. For many installations, the solar panels produce enough energy to reduce power bills by half each month. Modern solar panels are continually increasing in efficiency and decreasing in price as developers work on improving the design.Therefore, with future solar panel upgrades, your energy production rate, and power bill savings, will likely increase.
Although you will need to invest in the installation upfront, and slowly recoup costs through energy savings, you may qualify for tax credits that reduce your initial financial investment. To ensure your investment will pay for itself in the future, talk with an energy consultant to run the figures before scheduling the solar panel install.
Tankless Water Heaters
Traditional water heaters hold about fifty gallons of cold water that it heats up on demand from users turning the hot water faucet. The process of heating up the water to the specified temperature wastes both power and water. You can convert your office building to a tankless water heater system to nearly eliminate power and water waste altogether.
The tankless system features separate high efficiency heating elements that instantly heat up water running through the lines. This automatic system increases energy efficiency over traditional hot water heaters by up to 34%, depending on total usage in your office building. You will want to have an energy consultant look at prior hot water usage to determine your total expected efficiency improvement before switching to this system.
Energy Star Upgrades
When it comes time to upgrade your office equipment, you can save yourself an incredible amount of money on utility costs by selecting Energy Star approved hardware. The Energy Star designation indicates that the equipment consumes up to 75% less electricity than uncontrolled variants. Since 2007, peripherals and plugs included with the equipment must also meet the strict specification standards or the equipment loses its place in the program.
You can focus on replacing equipment as it slows down or breaks to meter out replacement costs over time. With each small change, you will likely see little improvement in power consumption rates. Once your entire office space utilizes Energy Star equipment, however, the savings will start to become much more apparent. You can work with an energy consultant to identify equipment that will make the biggest differences in utility costs once replaced.
Working With Energy Consulting Firms
Your office building's size, system configuration and equipment layout will directly influence the areas most in need of improvement. To start addressing energy consumption rates in your office building, you must identify the main problem areas. You can work with an energy consulting firm focused on integrating new technologies into workspaces to find areas lacking in energy efficiency.
The consultation firm can provide you with detailed reports of energy consumption rates across the entire office space. You can utilize the reports and advice provided by your consultants to direct your upgrade funds toward the areas costing you the most each month in utility costs. Upon making the suggested changes to your office space, you will start to see a return on your investment in energy efficient technologies right away.
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