Carbon Works

Are energy expenses driving you crazy?

It does not have to be this way.

Nearly all companies are able to save between 10% and 40% each year on their energy expenses. This is money they are throwing down the drain as well as capacity wasted.

Best of all most of the modifications are straightforward, reasonably priced, and pay for themselves quickly. Some cost nothing but a few minutes of your time!

And the best part is that you reap the reward year after year. Each month you get to keep more of your profits and hard earned income. Industrial energy savings is highly rewarding and pays for itself.

5 methods to a successful energy audit:

1) Determine how much you will save: before you make plans or hire an energy consultant, make sure the potential savings excuse the expenditure. Really, does it make sense to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars if your likely savings is merely a few dollars? On the other hand, if several thousand dollars shows you how to save tens (or hundreds) of thousands every year, you would be a fool not to execute it.

2) Decide on an energy consultant: Ok, I’m a tad biased. I believe our services are the best value to be had. That being said, there are several firms out there. Many are first-rate, some are terrible. While price alone doesn’t tell you everything, it is a sign. Complimentary is typically not the best option. The old adage is true: you get what you pay for! And nearly all free services are offered by your local utility. Hmmm….how can this be a conflict of interest? On the other hand, more expensive is not always better. Frequently you are paying for a high priced consultant or engineer to perform things like the site walk-through, data entry, etc….We have found the best way to deal with this concern is to have you or your employee do the walk-through then only pay for the analysis. The analysis is a high value area which is where the savings are found. An experienced auditor has the knowledge and education to scrutinize the data and give you prioritized suggestions.

3) Perform a site walk-through: either you or your auditor will have to do a thorough walk-through. If your auditor is doing the walk-through, be prepared to spend your day escorting him around your facility. He won’t be aware of your process or where your equipment is located, and will want your help. Don’t be anxious about doing the walk-through yourself. This is the easy part of the energy assessment. Really, it isn’t rocket science, and you (or one of your employees) are essentially better equipped to do this than the auditor. You know your process, facility, and equipment much better. But be sure that you get detailed instruction before you start. When we perform energy audits, we provide our customers an comprehensive walk-through handbook. This gives step by step directions on what information is needed, where to look, as well as how to gather the data.

4) Study the consultant’s report: The typical report starts with an executive summary and then goes over the findings and recommendations in detail. Does he provide you details supporting his recommendations? Did he include calculations, charts, and graphs? Did he list references that he used? What did he use as the basis of his assumptions? Most of all, do his suggestions make sense?

5) Prioritize and execute the recommendations: Some may only save a few dollars but cost you zilch. Many may have a enormous payback but the price to execute is excessive. I find it valuable to employ the payback period as the starting point of my suggestions. This takes into considerations the cost and the reward. Additionally, do not be taken aback if many of the top suggestions are basic common sense. In my experience, my preferred cost savings come from simple fixes!

Industrial Energy Audit Services are industry leaders in commercial energy efficiency. Our decades of experience will make your energy audits fast, effective, and affordable. We are so confident that we will save you money, that we guarantee that we will save you 15% or more on your energy bills.

For years I’ve been saying that intelligent businesses focus on growing sales, not on cutting expenses. “You can’t cut your way to profitability” is one of my beloved sayings.

In business, a dollar earned is nearly the same to a dollar saved since taxes are based on your profits, not income. Essentially, you are taxed on your revenue (sales) minus expenses. Sales and expense control are roughly worth the same. The problem is that it is a lot easier for most people to focus on expenditure control that on top end (sales) growth. And after you hit the apparent costs, you exhaust more and more time on stuff that save you less and less money. It is the 80/20 rule reversed, where you find 80% of your savings from the first 20% of cost cuts. Also, you are restricted on how much you can cut expenses, while your ability to increase sales is essentially boundless, so it makes more sense to focus on growth than on frugality.

So my rudimentary suggestion is for entrepreneurs to concentrate on sales.

I still believe this, but that doesn’t indicate that I’m saying that you be supposed to ignore your expenses. That would be a big gaffe. First of all, spending troubles get bigger more rapidly than revenue. What is a minor concern at $30k per year income is a immense dilemma when you grow to $300k per year. The second reason is that expenditure control is initially simpler and easier to do than sales growth. Your initial swing at expense control will get you the biggest gains. Following attempts at expense control will be more tricky, less successful, and often influence critical business areas like productivity or quality.

The Answer Is To Be Shrewd With Your Cost Cutting.

What’s my pet area to cut expenses? It’s saving energy by way of an ashrae energy audit or energy management. At this point a minor disclosure is needed: I am an energy consultant and get paid to help organizations cut their energy spending. I do energy audits for my customers and usually cut their energy bills by more than 20%.

Now that we have cleared the air, let me clarify why I like to concentrate on energy spending:

-The majority of my customers are manufacturers, and they spend a lot every month on their energy expenses. This is a considerable area of trouble to them.

-Even if you are not a manufacturer, utilities are nonetheless one of your biggest costs.

-Nearly all firms can slash their energy expenditure by 20% or more. I’ve seen savings as high as 59%! I can’t imagine of many areas where you can save this much.

-Energy Management is an area where you will slash charges while increasing output. Any other cost cutting will eventually hurt production or quality.

Industrial Energy Audit Services are industry leaders in ashrae energy audits. Our decades of experience will make your energy audits fast, effective, and affordable. We are so confident that we will save you money, that we guarantee that we will save you 15% or more on your energy bills.