Energy Efficiency At Work
Improving the energy efficiency of your workplace requires a team effort. By raising employee awareness, individuals can take greater responsibility in reducing their energy consumption and, in turn, help to decrease the organisations carbon emissions.
Knowledge is power. Whether you’re in a school, hospital, factory or office block, employees and tenants need to be educated about energy use and its implications. By making employees aware of how much energy they are using each month and where the energy is being used, they can seek to reduce this.
Energy awareness is about reminding employees to be energy conscious. You wouldn’t leave your appliances on at home all day if you were out so why would you do the same at work.
It may seem obvious, but employees may need reminding about the simple energy saving actions.
Simple Energy Saving Actions
• Each night when the working day is over, lights and appliances such as computers, printers, should be turned off.
• If working overtime, staff should think twice before hitting the override button. By using the override button, the entire plant in the building will run.
• It’s not just about electricity, save gas and water. If you take showers at work be mindful of the length of time you’re showering for.
• In summer months, think of energy efficient ways to stay cool and vice versa in winter.
Energy Campaign
To keep the energy campaign moving forwards, it would be a good idea to include the energy efficiency topic in regular team meetings where individuals can share energy saving tips and the energy spend can be compared month on month.
To be able to provide staff with information about the buildings energy use, an energy monitoring systems should be in place. The better the energy monitoring system in the building, the more information you have to work with.
The first step in energy monitoring is working out what needs monitoring. Sites may opt to use an energy consultant to carry out a site energy survey which can identify the key energy drivers within the building. Once it is clear which areas need to be monitored, a comprehensive submetering system can be installed into the buildings.
Sub meters allow for the collection of half-hourly data and remote energy monitoring in particular areas, e.g. individual floors, tenanted areas, buildings plant room and main tariff gas, electric and water meters. Once this information is collected, it can be presented to the building users in an energy report or energy presentation to identify key energy trends and highlight areas for energy savings.
To improve motivation, employees can compete to be the most energy efficient and this could be related to an incentive scheme. As a reminder, “turn off” stickers can be displayed on appliances, switches and plugs and an energy efficiency display board could be displayed in staff areas.
