Lighting retrofit that delivers 20% more lighting for 20% less dollars and requires no new electrical parts, such as bulbs, controls or ballasts. Not even new fixtures. It's like a rope trick, except there is no trick, just ropes. Lighting intensity decreases in reverse proportion to the distance from the source [...]
Procurement department can buy materials, machines and office supplies, but cannot buy electricity, natural gas and water. Just can't. Does not have sufficient decision-making authority. Neither does CFO. Nor even President. Utilities are bought by a person who flips the switch or turns the valve, not by procurement or CFO or President. Procurement contract [...]
A perfectly energy efficient LED lighting may waste energy and hurt sales when not designed with energy management in mind. Is Energy Efficiency the same as Energy Management? Energy Efficiency (EE) is about technological solutions that use less energy to produce the same result. In this case, LED lighting is more efficient than fluorescent since [...]
An old engineering joke says that if it moves, but should not - use duct tape, if does not move, but should - WD-40. Though every joke contains a joke, this formula can be applied to a walk through energy audit: engineering knowledge and common sense will go a long way in identifying low hanging fruits [...]
Simple energy metrics can be useless or worse Our client, an industrial bakery, monitored natural gas burned in the oven in m3 per kg of shipped bread. A fair metric, right? Just read the meter, take production report, divide consumption by production - done. They have got nowhere with this metric when it came to [...]
Through my continuous networking, I am privileged to meet people dealing with energy efficiency. With this post I am starting a series titled Learning from the Big. Though we target mid-sized companies, experience from market leaders can help us and our clients. My first source of conservation experience – Atlantic Packaging – provides a total packaging solution [...]
Starbucks is looking for a savior. Starbucks is having trouble meeting its goal to reduce energy use by 25 percent by 2015, according to its recently issued annual sustainability report. Last year, the company improved its energy performance only 4.6 percent over its 2008 baseline, using 6.49 kWh/square foot per store in the U.S. and [...]
Waste of energy, as painful as it is by itself, is often a symptom of lost sales, under utilization of production capacity and other lost opportunities. Some time ago I participated in a walk through energy audit of a commercial bakery. Plant manager was interested in saving energy, but not as much as in opportunities to [...]
To M&V or not to M&V - this is the question If you are in charge of energy at your manufacturing or commercial facility, you are likely to be addressed by vendors with various energy efficiency improvements proposals. It can be a more efficient machine or a tune-up or an addition to your existing system. [...]
Flip a switch or a flip bird? Numerous studies show that simple changes in employee behaviour may save up to 10% in energy costs with no capital costs. The common issue is that it’s difficult to initiate behavioural changes and it’s definitely very difficult to sustain them. Here comes the most puzzling part: some companies [...]
