where and how to save energy costs?

[ruffsclive]

Is there a tool that we could use that would enable our company to make data-driven decisions about where and how to save energy costs? We want to establish a baseline which reveals poor energy performers and savings opportunities across all facilities in our portfolio. Can anyone help me with this?

 

[Guest]

Not sure where you're located, but in Southern California, Edison will do a limited business audit in an effort to see if solar panels would be cost advantageous. If you are trying to audit by machine, I'm just guessing that is going to be a pretty expensive process unless your power company has a program to help with that. General rule of thumb is that any machine that generates heat (fuser, shrink wrapper, electric shop heaters, etc...) will by far be your biggest consumers of electricity. Also, anything running on 3 phase power will be generally more efficient than the same machine configured to run on single phase.

 

[Stickman42]

I do some consumption monitoring at my home using a data logger. What I've discovered is that the answers are out there, you've just got to invest the time to get to them.

If you want to take this on, you could look into something like this:

http://www.theenergydetective.com/comproducts

 

[FiddlePaper]

Solar panels are the best to save energy but it's quite expensive installing one.

 

[Meizzy]

Esko offers a variety of software systems that could help determine where and how your current process can be tweaked to save on energy costs

 

[Mollie]

I just read this article on Green Journal about saving money on heat pumps, but I think it might work for various types of energy savings! They mention the "ENERGY STAR® qualification" which basically means that the appliance is super energy efficient