Commercial buildings eat up a ton of energy and often 24 hours a day. Here’s how you can cut costs this summer.

Start with Lighting

Lighting is a great place to begin because you can cut costs on two fronts. With efficient lighting, you can reduce heat production and increase time off – both of which reduce energy use. Here are the two lighting adjustments you can make to get started:

Replace bulbs with LED lighting

LED lights emit very little heat. In the summer months especially, you are competing with heat producing fixtures for cool air. Less heat production equals lower AC bills. It’s really that simple. Plus they use 75% less energy and last 25 times longer than incandescent lighting.

Install motion activated lights

Why waste energy lighting an office that isn’t in use when employees skip out for summer Fridays as early as noon? When a business powers down, so should the electricity and in today’s flexible work environment it’s hard to predict the exact hours a facility will be in use. Motion activated lighting systems shut off after extended periods of stillness making them an automated way to save energy.

Upgrade to a Programmable Thermostat

Similar to the motion activated lighting, you can save with a programmable thermostat due to the advantages of automation. Seventy-five degrees may be the optimal temperature when the office is full but when 6 pm hits it’s probably safe to set the temperature 3 to 5 degrees higher. With a programmable thermostat, you can set these rules ahead of time. The aggregate savings on cooling costs will really add up.

Get Your Staff Involved

There are some things you can’t simply solve with automation such as standby power. Electricity continues to leak from office equipment even when it’s seemingly turned off. If it’s too much to ask employees to unplug desktops and other machinery daily, request that they do so while out for vacation during the summer or perhaps long weekends! Unplugging eliminates phantom power and the energy savings can really add up.  

EIG has been engineering power monitoring systems for over 40 years to help commercial clients understand their energy usage. For more on how we can help your business this summer and beyond, email us at sales@www.electroind.com.