Business Energy Cost Reduction - How Effective Is Energy Efficient Design?

At most companies, the philosophy of cost cutting is to get rid of things that, once gone, will have the least effect on business interest. If this philosophy sounds negative, that's because it is. But so are most of the circumstances where companies perform cost cutting. Spending money to boost profits is usually saved for the fat times, while cautiously slicing away budgets is the plan of action during recessions. If this describes your company's approach to cost cutting, it's important to realize that there's another option for saving money besides laying off employees that you'll need when the economy improves: implementing energy efficient design.

Although implementing efficient design involves spending money, it commonly ends up being the largest source of consistent cost savings that most companies experience. To understand how implementing efficient design can generate significant business energy cost reduction, it helps to understand why companies typically overpay for utilities. When commercial buildings implement interior lighting systems and HVAC systems, they typically use the systems for 30 or more years, meaning that many of today's commercial and industrial buildings have lighting systems and HVAC components that aren't designed for energy efficiency.

Concerning lighting, most traditional lighting systems rely on fluorescent T12 lighting, incandescent lighting, or a mixture of both, with the effect being that companies pay 50 percent more for their annual lighting needs than necessary. Similarly, traditional HVAC systems can drive up energy usage due to the presence of "oversized" parts. For example, air distribution fans and chillers in older HVAC systems routinely use more energy than necessary due to their large size. Contrary to some common misconceptions, correcting these problems doesn't necessitate installing a new lighting system or HVAC system; it involves retrofitting an existing lighting or HVAC system for energy efficiency.

Naturally, the questions on most companies' minds when they consider implementing energy saving retrofits is how much a project costs and what its short-term ROI will be. While implementing efficient design is consistently more expensive than implementing traditional design, the cost of efficiency projects can vary widely. However, most efficiency projects have a first-year ROI of 50 percent or more, making it possible for companies to finance a project and pay for it with the resulting energy savings.

In the past, achieving business energy cost reduction through efficient design was cost prohibitive for smaller companies. But today, energy efficiency providers offer in house, long-term, interest-free financing to small business that are dedicated to making energy efficiency a part of their future. To learn which energy saving retrofits are right for your company's building(s), having an experienced energy efficiency consultant perform an energy audit is the best option.

In my research on energy efficient consulting, I've studied the cost saving value of lighting retrofits and other energy saving retrofits.