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In our current world economy, we are all trying to find ways to lower our monthly bills. All of us want to learn how to spend less money on food, ways to lower our transportation costs, and ways to lower our utility bills. We all would like to reduce the amount of money we pay for electricity and other energy sources. There are many things you can do to improve the energy efficiency of your home, and save money in the process.

Turn out your lights when you are not home. When you leave the house, leave on as few lights as possible. For safety reasons, lots of people like to leave on a light or two, but make sure that you do this only when it is absolutely necessary.

Make sure your house is properly insulated. This will help the house to maintain higher temperatures and reduce the amount of heat energy necessary during the winter.

If your computer or other appliances have an energy-saving mode, make sure that you choose this setting.

Unplug your cell-phone charger when you are not using it. If you leave it plugged in while it is not charging anything, you are wasting electricity.

Install fluorescent light bulbs. They use much less energy than traditional light bulbs. Also, make sure that your house has windows and skylights that allow you to optimize your use of daylight.

Limit the number of electrical devices you are using at once. If you have the television on, turn off the computer. If you are listening to the radio, make sure the television is not on. This is good for peace of mind as well as cutting costs.

These are just a few ways that you can save energy. You also might consider having an energy efficiency expert evaluate your home to figure out other ways you could cut down on your energy use. This will benefit the environment and your budget!

LEED Certified and Green Technology, Energy Edge Technologies can help save your Industrial, Hospital, Grocery Store or any other high energy commercial buildings massive amounts of money! We Take A Full Facility Approach or call 888-729-5722 Ext. 100.

Revenue So, you’re a CEO, CFO or COO of a company struggling to generate demand for your products or services. You decide on a new or tweaked strategy that will get your revenue on the right track, back to growth or new areas for growth. You implement the changes. While efforts are continuing to make the behavioral and tactical improvements to achieve the goals and objectives you have set forth in your strategy, you begin to look further into what else can be done to improve the company financials.

Profitability Whether or not your company is grappling with revenue issues, you and your Board are always interested in ways to improve profitability. You look more closely at where you can cut the fat, if there’s any left to cut. Your largest operating expense is your employees. Like many companies in America in the recent and not so recent past, you consider starting a new round of budget cuts in salaries, benefits and even people. Can you really afford to cut or possibly discourage your troop’s way to more productivity?

Energy Expenses If you house your organization in expansive facilities, another large operating expense is your monthly/yearly/ever-present electric bill. What can you do about that, the power company has a monopoly in your geography as it does in most. The least expensive steps you can take are to ask employees to turn-off lights and reduce the comfort level of the thermostat setting. Have you ever walked into a government, commercial or industrial build that is dimly lit or is too warm and stuffy, or even too cold during the winter. Not a very attractive place to visit, let alone work.

Technical Solution to a Financial Problem You may want to consider the things you can do to reduce your power consumption that give you an attractive payback and ROI. Treating your motors, lighting, HVAC and refrigeration systems can give you the best bang-for-your-buck, when the proven approaches and technologies are engineered and installed properly. It may also help your decision to move forward with such a project if it is guaranteed every step of the way, including your continued savings after the installation and throughout your payback period. In terms of savings, the project should result in the gift that keeps on giving, for a couple of decades.

Caveat Emptor Words of caution, when considering such a solution, make sure that you award your project to an engineering firm with experience in designing, installing and guaranteeing your project and results. And be certain you are not hiring a performance contractor or a company that has you sign a long-term contact sharing in your savings for a decade or more by replacing your hardware with insufficient new motors, lighting, HVAC or refrigeration. Otherwise, you could be better off dimming the lights yourself!

LEED Certified and Green Technology, Energy Edge Technologies can help save your Industrial, Hospital, Grocery Store or any other high energy commercial buildings massive amounts of money! We Take A Full Facility Approach or call 888-729-5722 Ext. 100.

Office buildings are significant energy consumers using an average of 17 kWh of electricity and 32 cubic feet of gas per square foot. Moreover, industry data indicates that energy costs are 20% of the typical facility’s annual operating budget.

As energy costs continue to increase, businesses are discovering the tremendous financial, operational and competitive value of energy cost reduction and improved energy efficiency.

Because HVAC and lighting comprise 65% of combined energy use in office buildings (47% and 18% respectively), they are where you should initially focus your energy reduction efforts. By centering on these key areas, companies have significantly improved energy efficiency while maintaining or improving occupant / employee comfort and productivity.

Because each facility is relatively unique, using a carefully planned “whole facility” approach, allows you to be confident that you are making the best, most financially and operationally prudent energy efficiency choices. You will find there are proven and recommended engineering approaches and technologies available that can guarantee results and by working with an experienced, energy services company or engineering firm, choosing the right options does not need to be complicated. Deciding where and how to begin can be fairly straightforward. The best first step is always to focus on quick, low cost or no cost solutions. This can include training staff to turn lights off when they leave unoccupied rooms, using occupancy sensors in offices, conference rooms, etc., using sleep mode settings for computers and other electronics when not in use, setting back thermostats during overnight and closed hours and having the HVAC systems serviced and cleaned on a regular basis. After you’ve addressed the “low hanging fruit”, next steps can involve choosing from a variety of longer term options that are designed to deliver much greater energy savings. Options should be considered based on their proven track record of success, whether they are “approved” or “recommended” by organizations such as Energy Star, US DOE, USGBC, IEEE, etc., their cost effectiveness and return on investment as well as their consistency with your company’s goals and culture. Some of the best options for office buildings include lighting upgrades to high efficiency fluorescent, CFL and/ or LED, use of occupancy sensors and day-lighting opportunities, sine wave modification for outdoor lighting circuits, liquid pressure amplification for central chiller plants, anti-compressor short cycling for roof top units, use of variable frequency drives, building management systems, reflective roof coatings and possibly equipment replacement for older equipment that is approaching the end of its useful life.

As you proceed with implementing energy efficiency measures, know that you don’t have to do it alone. There are experienced firms that can help make recommendations and provide turnkey services for you. In choosing a partner to guide this type of “whole facility” approach for you, it is important to look at a number of factors. You may want to ask the following: What is their level of experience using these various technologies, do they use proven and recommended approaches, what are the credentials of their staff, are they members of key industry organizations, what is their level of knowledge of your industry, do they offer a free initial evaluation and do they offer guarantees at each step of the process. Remember, the sooner you begin, the sooner you start saving your organization’s valuable and limited resources and improving your company’s profitability!

LEED Certified and Green Technology, Energy Edge Technologies can help save your Industrial, Hospital, Grocery Store or any other high energy commercial buildings massive amounts of money! We Take A Full Facility Approach or call 888-729-5722 Ext. 100.

In today’s energy climate more and more people have become motivated to accomplish what they can to become more energy efficient to conserve energy and money. Regrettably this same climate has encouraged some to take advantage of innocent consumers’ desires to save energy and reduce operating expenses.

Vendors that advertise power factor improvement (kVAR correction) and transient voltage suppression to save energy are a good case in point of this bad trend. Recently we are seeing more and more of these businesses cropping up and we believe it is time to set the record straight.

First off, transient voltage surge suppression (TVSS) plays an important part in improving power quality to guard sensitive equipment inside a facility. However, TVSS does not save energy. TVSS’s are barely active an infinitesimal portion of a second to defend against voltage surges which only last for less than a millisecond. To actually decrease energy use the TVSS would need to essentially cut power consumption for an extended amount of time which is not what they are designed to do. Again, TVSS is essential to protect susceptible electrical equipment but consumers should steer clear of vendors promising, or even guaranteeing, a reduction in energy consumption.

And what about salespeople who maintain that increasing power factor will save 15% or 20% or 30% of energy consumption and resultant costs? This is false but also a bit trickier.

For homes, power factor correction does zero to save energy because the average home already has an average power factor of approximately 0.97 which is nearly the perfect power factor of 1 or unity. Additionally, the unit (called a capacitor) is installed at the homes main circuit breaker. According to IEEE 5.5.3.3 capacitors must be located at or near the individual inductive motor loads to decrease power system losses by reducing heat and distribution losses known as I2R losses.

So what about commercial and industrial facilities looking to use power factor correction to shrink energy expenditures? It is completely appropriate for a business that is incurring penalties or a kVA billing structure from the utility company to improve the facility’s overall power factor by installing a capacitor bank at the main electrical service entrance or individual capacitors at or near the particular motor loads. Doing so will do away with the power factor penalties and/or reduce the kVA demand charges on the electric bill which can save considerable money and provide a significant ROI on the investment.

But what about power factor correction reducing kWh consumption? IEEE also tells us that at most I2R losses only account for 2 to 5% of the total load in a facility. Simple arithmetic tells us that it would be in opposition to the laws of physics to obtain the 15% to 30% energy reduction claimed by some vendors. Consider it. Even if your facility had 5% distribution losses and you could correct 100% of the predicament via power factor correction at every load (which can’t be done) you would still save no more than 5% at most. No where close to the claims of some capacitor reps and manufacturers.

All that said, power factor correction when done appropriately will eliminate utility penalties and kVA demand charges, improve facility power quality, increase electrical system capacity, and save a modicum of energy when applied at the proper motor loads in an industrial facility.

So make an investment in transient voltage surge suppression and power factor correction when appropriate and necessary. But caveat emptor!

LEED Certified and Green Technology, Energy Edge Technologies can help save your Industrial, Hospital, Grocery Store or any other high energy commercial buildings massive amounts of money! We Take A Full Facility Approach or call 888-729-5722 Ext. 100.

There are plenty of things you can do to demonstrate better energy efficiency. Everyone knows the big ones such as recycle and turn off the lights. But there are other small things that can really add up. They may seem odd or like slight inconveniences, but the small magnitude of the inconvenience will completely disappear once it becomes a part of your regular schedule.

The first thing is to unplug all chargers when you are done with them. Many people have their cell phone, camera, or MP3 chargers in the same spot, always ready to go for convenience purposes as we are all always rushing out the door. However, leaving something just simply plugged in can drain electricity and at the same time serves no purpose.

Another thing would be to car pool or take public transportation. These are likewise inconveniences to many people, especially on days when they are running late. However, sticking to a schedule like this may actually make you more punctual and aware of your time. It also can be much cheaper for you. Your car will last longer and your petrol bill will go way down.

You should also start recycling the little bits of plastic you may not even realize can be recycled. For example, many people just throw away the plastic trays from TV dinners. This is hugely impractical, since they can be easily rinsed out and recycled.

Many people throw away lots of little bits of paper like sticky notes, or bits of plastic, like from a candy wrapper. This plastic is merely going to sit in a land fill. Why not put it to good use? These things all add up, so we need to be smart about them. If everyone merely took a step back and looked at what they were really wasting–and knew the life of an object after it was thrown away–people would save so much more in terms of recycling and reusing

LEED Certified and Green Technology, Energy Edge Technologies can help save your Industrial, Hospital, Grocery Store or any other high energy commercial buildings massive amounts of money! We Take A Full Facility Approach or call 888-729-5722 Ext. 100.