Traditional energy bills are shrinking the profits for Australian storage facility owners and as a result of these rising costs of electricity, many storage facilities are now looking at solar energy as an option.

However, if solar is not an option for your Facility, this can be frustrating and make energy bills challenging to combat. But all is not lost as it is not impossible to lower your rates.

It sounds simple, but it is often over looked, as the first step to energy efficiency (and lower bills), is understanding how the energy in your Facility is being used.

Which devices, fixtures, or appliances are using most of the power? When is the energy being used? What is the energy being used for? Answering these questions gives Storage owners insight into where their energy usage is being wasted.

Simple things like monitoring energy use can reveal that certain high-load equipment may not be being switched off and/or being left on overnight and / or on weekends.

It’s important to remember that just because prices go up, doesn’t mean bills have to be higher. If Storage owners take a few simple steps to change the way their business uses energy, they can mitigate any increases to its cost.

Here are a few easy ways to reduce energy consumption:

  1. Swap older light bulbs with LED lights. This can save 50 to 80 per cent on lighting costs. One facility found out that it was spending $12,000 more per year than needed.
  2. Adjust the air-conditioning thermostat by just one degree towards ambient (up in summer, down in winter) for a savings of between 8 and 11 per cent on air-conditioning costs.
  3. Fixing seals and handles on cool rooms and fridges can have a 25 per cent impact on its running cost.
  4. Turning loads off at night will reduce baseload energy that would otherwise be wasted every hour that a business is closed, which is around 5000 hours pa out of 8760 hours pa. Switching off 10 twin fluorescent office lights at the end of the day would save $540.00 pa.

Author: Vivienne Forbes, Founder, Social Ties & Editor, SSAA Insider. If you would like to provide an article or a feature for the SSAA Insider magazine, contact Vivienne at vforbes@socialties.com.au