Price isn’t everything
True you should always shop around diligently for the best deal, but reducing consumption now will save you money during your current supply contracts as well as future years.See free market intelligence reports from Optima Energy Management
First things first
Before investing in capital projects to save energy, get a grip on avoidable losses. This means engaging the support of all your staff, getting them to adopt more energy-conscious ways of working, to make suggestions, and to be more alert to possible waste.
What makes them tick?
Find out how motivated and aware staff are, what would and wouldn’t engage their interest, and what other issues are important to them. If yours is a small organisation, talk to people and listen to them. In a larger organisation an on-line questionnaire should get about 30% response: keep it short, and precede it with a few informal off-the-record face-to-face interviews to make sure it’s in touch with reality.Download a case history
Incentivise with care
Individual awards can be divisive, and cash awards that are withheld or diluted (for whatever reason) are demotivating. Be guided by what staff say in the attitude survey, but give preference to non-cash, team awards; or do something for the local community or a staff-nominated charity.
Jump on the bandwagon
Don’t start a separate energy initiative if you already have one going on quality, environmental compliance, or anything else that you could piggy-back on. Coordinating activities will look more like joined-up management, and adding a new energy focus may even help revive another project that was flagging.
Train your key players
A small number of employees will have a disproportionate influence on energy consumption. Work out who they are and arrange condensed, well-focused vocational training for them.Training courses and related services from NIFES
Target and monitor
Establish how your consumptions relate to the weather, production throughputs, or other measurable ‘driving factors’; then monitor these factors on a weekly basis thereafter to confirm that actual consumptions fall below what would have been expected without your energy-saving initiatives.Browse Vilnis Vesma's guide to monitoring and targeting
Keep it fresh
If the weekly savings tail off, it’s time for a new campaign (otherwise save your money for something else).
Act on significant exceptions
If your monitoring scheme unexpectedly shows a costly deviation from expected performance, get it investigated. Something simple could have gone wrong, triggering excessive consumption. It should be easy and cheap to rectify, saving even more.
Communicate
Weekly monitoring will provide evidence that savings are being made. Successes and setbacks alike will help to keep the issue in people’s minds, and providing regular feedback is all part of keeping the workforce engaged. But remember to keep listening as well.Access free editorial to use in staff energy and environmental newsletters
Spend wisely
With the benefit of staff suggestions and a better appreciation of the dynamics of energy use in relation to driving factors, you will be in a much stronger position to evaluate and justify capital investment in energy-saving technology. Plus you’ll be able to see whether it worked and what it has saved.Our technical topics page may provide some useful pointers