Don’t let your energy usage get your business in trouble!
What is the one thing teenagers are famous for doing whenever their parents jet off on holiday? Holding a house party of course! Only one unlucky teen in Australia was in the for the shock of her life recently when her parents found out about all her wild parties simply by checking an energy monitoring app on their smartphones and discovering that something was amiss……
It sounds odd but the same could be happening in your business? OK, so your children aren’t heading to your factory after hours and holding wild parties (we hope!) but it could be your machines that are having a ball in your absence.
We all like to think that when we leave work at the end of the day, we have switched everything off but that’s not always the case. In fact, for some industry sectors, machines are purposely left on to run independently at night – and not always just the ones you need!
If it can happen to the likes of Walkers Crisps, it could happen to anyone. Walkers contacted us to find out why their energy usage – and subsequently bills – were always so high. They did have a few machines running alone at night but had already accounted that energy usage in a forecast – a forecast that in reality was well over expectations.
We installed an energy monitoring system in their Leicester based manufacturing plant – home of Walkers crisps. The system monitored the energy usage of their six compressors and found a number of machines were active at night, when they actually shouldn’t have been. Using our innovative technologies Walkers were able to install a compressor sequencing solution to the whole of their plant that kept energy consumption to a minimum and ensured those machines not required were switched off and not having a party in their absence!
As a result, they now have a 99% efficiency rating and have saved 20% off their energy bills – just making sure their machines were turned off at night.
And of that Aussie teenage girl’s fete? With a bit of luck she was asked to pay back the money she spent on her parent’s energy bills and held her parties elsewhere next time – or at least somewhere that doesn’t have an energy monitoring solution!
If you want to find out about how to monitor your business energy visit our site here: www.aces-limited.co.uk
Top 5 ways your business can manage its energy efficiently
Everyone is aware of how energy efficient light bulbs and double glazing can help reduce your energy consumption, but when it comes to business there are some amazing technologies on the market that can give a proper insight into the usage thus helping you to manage it efficiently. Here are our Top 5 business energy initiatives:
1. Determine where your energy is going 
In order to reduce the amount you are spending on something, you need to know exactly where the spending is going. Ninety-nine per cent of the time people pay their energy bills without even giving a second thought to how much they are using, whether it is for domestic or business bills. A similar situation might arise, for example, if you were to constantly incur large phone bills; as a consequence you would check when exactly the more expensive phone calls are being made, and make any necessary adjustments to your telephone activity. In the case of energy usage, many businesses are simply unaware of where wastage is occurring. Machines being left on overnight, water leaks, and inefficient use of lighting and energy in empty rooms and offices are all good examples of a potential drain in your energy, as well as your bottom-line
By implementing a Gateway Energy Monitoring System to your business you can see exactly when and where energy is actually being used. As a result of this you can implement initiatives throughout the company that will result in a reduction in the specific areas. For example, a hotel might switch off all the energy to vacant rooms on one floor, or a manufacturing company might monitor machine usage to identify better operating and energy-efficient patterns. Fixing a water leak saved one zoo in the Midlands thousands of pounds on their annual energy bill, which they had previously been unaware of.
2. Install AMR gas and water loggers
We find that many business owners are unaware of the technologies that exist in order to manage the usage of resources efficiently. AMR stands for Automatic Meter Reading and allows for the automatic collection of consumption, diagnostic and status data from a water or gas meter, which then transfers back to a central database used for billing, trouble-shooting and analysing.
There are many operational and financial benefits for a business to install AMR gas and water loggers including the fact that billing can be based on near real-time consumption rather that estimates. In order to help you manage your consumption the AMR loggers can set parameter and leakage alerts as well as collecting and formatting the data to meet your requirements. They also deal with all administration and authorisation required from National Grid and the Water Companies. Automating your energy monitoring in this way not reduces your energy usage and thus reduces operating costs, it also helps to make business operations more efficient too, giving you essential facilities management information.
3. Implement energy reporting systems
In a well functioning business it is important that there are justifications and records of all activities. If approached by a buyer, energy manager, estate manager or account department, it would be beneficial to have a detailed and easy-to-understand record of energy usage for the company. Energy reporting allows for businesses to retrieve these reports in a number of formats to summarise the utility use in an easy to read way.
The report can be viewed in many formats including league tables, number of invoices processed in the month along with statistics such as number or percentage of estimated readings and logs of billing problems and savings achieved.
4. Install Smart Metering
Smart metering operates by sending half-hourly data via GPS, GRPS or hard-wire fitting point. This differs from the AMR loggers as it allows for two-way communication between the meter and the central system.
The word ‘smart’ is used because the previous traditional gas and electric meters only measured the total energy consumption, whereas smart meters can provide an economical way of measuring the information, allowing price setting agencies to introduce prices for consumption based on the time of day and season.
The installation of smart metering into your business can influence behavioural change, provide accurate data for the energy reporting, add to your carbon reduction commitment credits, pinpoint energy waste early and most importantly save you money.
5. Solar Energy Monitoring
The uptake on solar energy technologies is constantly growing with the spotlight on a green economy. However many business owners are unaware of the monitoring solutions that are also available for this. It is easy to just implement solar panelling and assume that the usage is efficiently working; however it is possible that you are still overusing the energy you are producing through the panels.
By incorporating the use of solar energy production into your business, you will decrease energy bills significantly as well as contributing to the health of the environment.
A solar energy monitoring solution will enable you to develop an improved knowledge and analysis of how your site uses its solar resources by measuring how much is generated against weather conditions. This analytic process will enable your business to maximise return on investment.
At ACES we provide all of these management solutions which allow businesses to be fully in control of their energy consumption across the board. Contact us now for a consultation on how we can help you manage your energy and consequently save you money: 0845 3712632
Is your business wasting energy at night?
In a society where green initiatives are becoming more popular, employers and employees are far more aware of the ways in which they can save energy in the workplace. For example forgetting to switch off an office radio, leaving a computer monitor on standby overnight, or leaving office lights on can all contribute to hundreds of pounds worth of wasted energy each year – but these are all things employees can act upon off their own backs.
HOWEVER, have you ever thought about what goes on in the workplace when everyone goes home?
We have monitored the energy use of some reputable companies such as Walkers Crisps, Quorn Hotels and Twycross Zoo, and by monitoring their energy usage 24/7 have been able to give them some shocking results which would have been unachievable without our advanced technology.
For exam
ple when we implemented a Gateway Energy Monitoring System at Twycross Zoo, the system was able to spot a water leak that the company were unaware of due to the excessive amount of water being used through the night. Without our system, Twycross would have remained oblivious to this, and continued to pay unnecessary amounts on their water bills. Based on our recommendations, they made the changes necessary and have saved 20% on their annual energy bills.
The most recent figures reported this time last year by Carbon Connect stated that UK businesses are wasting £6 billion a year on energy, which will only become more expensive as energy prices continue to increase.
Energy provider, N Power, has also previously speculated that such high volumes of business energy are being wasted because business owners simply cannot see the wastage and are losing money without even knowing.
Twycross were not an isolated case; we have seen a number of companies witness surges in their energy usage when the workplace is unmanned as a result of our monitoring solutions.
Modern advancements in technology have resulted in businesses using larger quantities of energy, which now makes it a priority for this figure to be reduced, as we are globally becoming shorter on energy supplies. Lowering business energy consumption will not only be beneficial for the environment but will also help businesses lower their own bills.
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