Most businesses face high energy costs. However, in many circumstances, implementing an effective energy management approach can result in significant savings.
To realize significant cost savings, your company may need to develop an energy policy and make energy management a priority throughout the organization.
This article defines energy management and describes how to create and implement an energy management strategy. It emphasizes the energy savings and financial benefits that can be obtained via good energy management. It also provides recommendations on some of the practical short and long-term steps that your company may implement to reduce energy consumption.
An energy management plan consists of six main components
Implementing a successful energy management strategy entails six important steps.
Obtain agreement and appoint an energy manager
The first step is to ensure that senior management understands and supports the suggested energy-saving initiatives. Appointing an energy manager demonstrates that the company is serious about its energy-saving aims. The energy manager’s responsibility is to:
Lead the energy team’s energy-saving efforts;
Communicate and emphasize the necessity of the energy strategy to colleagues.
To be effective, the energy manager must have prior experience and training; suitable professional qualifications are available. The role may be full or part-time, depending on the size of your organization.
Recognize the issues
To efficiently manage energy consumption, you must first understand:
how your company is currently utilizing energy;
how your energy consumption compares to that of other businesses;
attitudes in your company toward using energy-saving techniques.
Prepare and organize
Begin by conducting an energy audit to see where you can save energy. Use all of the information you’ve gathered to create an energy policy and set long-term, medium-term, and short-term energy-saving goals.
Make a strategy of action
After you’ve determined your goals, create an action plan outlining the actual steps your company will take to attain them. Individuals should be assigned particular jobs.
Involve your employees
It is critical to obtain support for the energy strategy from:
important decision-makers;
top management;
employees at all levels of the organization.
Staff participation can be increased by conducting training and emphasizing the benefits of the technique.
Control, monitor, and report are the next steps
Check your performance on a frequent basis to ensure that you’re making progress toward your energy-saving targets. Put protocols in place to ensure that your systems continue to operate smoothly and save money in the future. Inform employees on their progress toward meeting targets; this helps to keep them engaged.
How to put energy-efficient measures in place
After developing your energy policy, conducting an energy survey, establishing energy-saving objectives and targets, and determining which steps to undertake, the next stage is to create an action plan for implementing the measures.
Making an action plan to save energy
Your action plan should outline how all energy-saving initiatives will be implemented in order of priority.
Actions can be divided into short, medium, and long-term projects, as well as no-cost, low-cost, and capital-investment-required methods. Beginning with short-term, low-cost initiatives can be helpful since they have an instant impact and help pique people’s interest in the campaign.
The following items should be included in the action plan:
Dates, expenses, and resources required for each measure;
Who will play significant responsibilities and carry out the measures;
If necessary, invest in energy-saving devices;
Financial support is available.
Communicating your energy-saving initiatives
Effective energy management requires everyone to participate and play their part. It is critical to keep employees and stakeholders informed of the energy-saving action plan at all stages.
They must understand:
why are the precautions being taken;
what is being done, i.e. describe the goals and energy-saving targets;
when the measures will be put in place;
how they can participate.
To get the energy plan off to a strong start, consider the following:
organize a launch event to raise awareness and interest;
give staff training to increase motivation and participation.