Seven tips for making your organisation more energy efficient

Making an organisation energy efficient can be a daunting task.  This article outlines seven key tips to help you make your organisation energy efficient.
Tip One: Monitor your energy use
“You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” This oft-repeated phrase is particularly applicable to energy.  If you don’t know how much energy you are using and what is using that energy it is very difficult to identify ways of making savings.
You can track your use manually by taking an electricity meter reading at the same time every day or on the last day of the month. However a more effective solution is installing an energy monitor that can track your usage every hour.  Energy monitors can cost as little as R800, however organisations which use a lot of energy will probably need to spend a lot more.  Go to our article on energy monitoring options in South Africa for more information.
Tip Two: Look for energy savings opportunities in your base load
Base load refers to energy consumption of an office, factory, organisation or house when it is not in use. For example the base load of a factory would be the amount of energy used at night after all the factory staff leave for home.
Theoretically most organisations should have a very low base load. But in reality many organisations are shocked to find out how much energy is being wasted after hours as well as on weekends when they review the data from their energy monitoring system referred to in Tip One. Fortunately this is often a very easy opportunity for energy savings and typically involves identifying a list of items that can be switched off by the last person to leave the premises. Read our article on calculating base load for more information.
Example of energy consumption of building as measured by a monitoring device. The base load of the building refers to those periods when the building is not in use, in this case after 17:00 and before 06:00.
Tip Three: Identify your significant energy users
Significant energy users (SEUs) are the main energy consumers in an organisation. Most organisations find that their energy use is dominated by one or two areas. For instance common SEUs for office buildings are air-conditioning systems and lighting. Knowing what your significant SEUs are help direct energy efficiency effort into areas where you are likely to make the most gains.  For instance you could spend a lot of time and money getting more energy efficient computers, however if computers only use 10% of your electricity and lights use 40% then your effort is much better spent in bringing in energy efficient lights.  
Heating and cooling is usually one of the significant energy users (SEUs) in office buildings (Image credit: Lee Serenethos, www.123rf.com)
Tip Four: Favour energy efficient products in procurement
Many organisations find that they simply can’t afford to implement a complete energy efficient replacement of their lights, computers and other equipment at a single time. However it is important to remember that lights and equipment are being replaced all the time as items age. Ensuring that energy efficiency is a procurement consideration means that over time you can slowly phase out inefficient equipment.
Tip Five: Allocate responsibility for making your organisation energy efficient
Single interventions to make an organisation more energy efficient often fail because there is no on-going commitment to efficiency. To institutionalise energy efficiency in your organisation make a staff member responsible for implementing and managing your programme to become and stay energy efficient. That staff member will be responsible for checking your energy monitoring system, setting energy monitoring targets, overseeing energy efficiency interventions and communicating with the rest of your staff.
Tip Six: Involve the rest of your staff in the process of becoming energy efficient
Staff behaviour can have a significant impact on your energy use. For instance they are the people who either do or don’t switch off equipment at the end of the day. Inform staff about your energy efficiency targets and the roles they can play in helping to achieve these targets. Give them regular feedback on energy use from your monitoring system and let everyone know when targets are or aren’t being achieved. Introduce energy savings as a key performance indicator for staff that have the most direct role to play in savings. Go to our article on how to conduct a successful energy efficiency campaign at work.
Tip Seven: Keep checking your energy use
After the initial success of implementing energy efficiency measures many organisations stop checking the energy use data on their energy monitoring system. It is essential to continue reading this data even if you aren’t planning any future interventions. Continual monitoring will ensure that you know about any unexpected increases in use. Perhaps you have taken on new staff and they haven’t been sufficiently well trained on turning off equipment at the end of the day. Perhaps a key piece of equipment has developed a fault and starts to draw unusually high amounts of energy. Continual monitoring will help you identify when these problems arise.