Crises and breakdowns come and go in facilities, but energy use remains a constantly high priority. It’s nearly impossible to have a conversation with a manager these days that doesn’t touch on using and saving energy.
In light of that, it’s hard for me not to be surprised by two results of a new survey from the Association of Energy Engineers. The association surveyed 410 of its members on, among other topics, trends in energy management.
The first surprise is that lighting technology is the highest priority for energy savings among respondents. A whopping 42 percent cited lighting technologies, more than double the next most mentioned technology, metering equipment.
Maybe respondents already had identified their facilities’ lighting systems as energy hogs. Or maybe EPAct 2005, with its early interim rules on earning a tax deduction for investments in lighting upgrades, helped focus attention on the benefits of new lighting technology.
Either way, the result seems to defy the traditional mindset of looking first at HVAC systems for low-hanging fruit when it comes to saving energy.
The second surprise is that nearly one-third of survey respondents — 31.79 percent — say their organization’s energy-reduction efforts have saved 5 percent or less. Many factors might contribute to this shockingly low figure — among them, poorly conceived or planned upgrades, improper product specification or installation, and failure to accurately track results.
Whatever the reasons, managers will need to ensure that the payback on energy-saving upgrades is higher than these survey results indicate. With energy waste as rampant as many managers report, finding savings shouldn’t be so difficult.