There's never been a better time to take control of costs

(Special Business Brief Report)

For many years most local businesses have paid little or no attention to their energy consumption, relying on estimated meter readings and historical expenditure to justify invoice payments to utility service providers.

As a successful island with a high value return per employee, we have forgotten the true value, year on year, of resources that we allow to escape from our premises in the form of energy.

The current economic climate provides a real incentive to take a fresh look at our energy usage patterns. Despite the fact that the costs of resources continue to rise significantly year after year most businesses are probably unaware of the optimum energy and resource usage that would enable them to function efficiently and effectively.

Many businesses run their mechanical plant outside of business hours, often to accommodate ‘staff comfort’ regardless of the cost. Not only does this damage the mechanical plant, reducing its potential life span, but it also wastes a significant quantity of energy. The result is that business suffers both a short and long-term financial impact, with plant needing early replacement.

Businesses have tended to focus on the customer-facing areas of their buildings, investing considerable sums on decorative and soft furnishings whilst making do with inefficient heating and cooling infrastructures and neglecting their general building envelope. Efficient insulation plays a key role in preventing heat loss from plant rooms and the building as a whole- saving money and increasing efficiency –When was the last time either the MD or FD visited their property’s '‘engine room'’?

Remember - effective energy management and maintenance of your mechanical plant are both critical to the working environment of your premise, delivering energy savings and plant lifecycle timeframe improvements that cut the costs of running your business.

The solutions
The good news is that solutions are readily available. The challenge is getting your team to ‘buy in’ to them - especially when they may involve changing perceptions, business practices and working procedures. It is clear that to be successful in the 21st century businesses will need to take control of their energy usage.

• Energy Surveys: Measuring your energy and resource consumption is the important first step, delivering a tangible benchmark from which to move forward.

Once your energy consumption has been measured and recorded, a report is compiled setting out the optimum resource requirement to run your business effectively.

This report will highlight issues concerning the way you operate your building, manage your mechanical plant and its overall condition along with reporting on the condition of the building fabric. It will offer practical guidance on what action you should take and areas for effective investment – that will pay dividends.

• Power Efficiency: Fully understanding where the electrical demand is within your building is very important and sub-metering is an effective method of achieving this allowing you to measure how effective the changes in your energy management strategy are. Initiatives such as the installation of movement sensors for lighting and time clocks for mechanical plant etc will offer reductions in the electrical demand of your premise by reducing the run time of these pieces of equipment whist the replacement of light bulbs and tubes with low energy ones will also add to your savings.

• Building Management Systems: Building Management Systems are the recognised tools you need for effective day-to-day management and efficient running of mechanical plant and other equipment. They provide a win-win solution, often delivering a return on investment in less than five years.

• Thermal Imaging Surveys: Thermal imaging surveys provide you with detailed information on heat loss from the fabric of your building and plant. They highlight weaknesses in insulation and identify plant that is running too hot, thus reducing its life span.

The key benefit in this process is that savings made on energy will transfer directly to your bottom line - as profit.

If you would like help or advice on creating an energy-efficient for your organisation, please contact AFM Jersey, Tel. 01534 877688 or AFM Guernsey, Tel. 01481 252111.

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