Ten Tips For Facility Managers To Cut Energy Costs

The ten tips were good eye openers. I would like to add a few more tips to those.

1. Controlling the Power factor in the negative side close to "Unity", or 1 would help in reducing the actual power consumption. Some system modifications and addons would be required for this. Care needs to be taken to avoid the power factor from crossing over to the positive side during load changes.

2. Using the outside cooler air to enter the conditioned spaces through suitable damper control and filters. This could be resorted to during the cooler months for areas where dust and other contaminants are minimal. It reduces the space cooling expenses.

3. Controlling of office and other areas lighting to just enough levels would reduce total lighting load.

4. Controlling the use of external signage and decorative illumination lighting to an essential percieved viewability time slot of "twilight to midnight".

Thanks

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If you have glass, tint it!  Solar control window film is one of the most cost effective ways to reduce incoming heat, reduce glare and eye strain, cast a uniform appearance on the building, add privacy and prevent fading and bleaching of fabrics. It is also available in shatter resistant for added safety.

To cut energy costs, you need a real picture of how your facility is consuming energy.  Utility bills are a month late and don't offer insight to how your building is operating.  As important as taking steps to reduce your spend, is taking steps to measure the results.  Real time monitoring, or interval data monitoring, is a great way for you, as a facility professional, to understand how your building operates day to day, weekend vs weekday, holiday vs weekend, etc....  It's critical to understand your baseline if you want to measure the effects of other cost cutting measures.

Real time whole building monitoring has never been easier and more affordable.  And the good news is your Mechanical Contractors are starting to offer whole building monitoring tools.

Good Luck!

I agree with Mr. Retish, but as important at real time monitoring is you should track where you've been as well. That is where the utility bills plays it's most important roll in our company.  With 90 plus buildings in 5 states I need to show value to each owner with each change we make to the buildings lighting or HVAC controls. We tract when these changes are made, then see if it had an impact to the monthly bill. I keep a total or dollars saved on the bill at each building. The biggest obstacle to over come in most energy saving measures is the resistance to spend money, unless there is instant results.  It doen't hurt to have those bullets in the chamber at bonus time, or during performance reviews either.

Check out Noveda.com and see how I monitor over 100 locations real-time updated every 60 seconds over the web.  No more waiting for utility bills to verify the impact of energy saving activity.  I can read Kwh, Btu's, therms, cost per student, cost per day, cost per hour all on my desktop.  I highly recommend this monitoring software system.