Turn off for Christmas

If you’re lucky enough to be able to completely shut down your office / factory for the Christmas and New Year break you have a great opportunity to learn more about your energy usage. The following will almost certaintly save you money straight away but could also benefit you in the long-term:

Turn it off!

Make sure everything that possibly / sensibly can be turned off is turned off. Anything from PC monitors still being on standby to compressed air systems maintaining pressure for no good reason.

What about heating systems? – a complete switch off can be simplest and extremely effective but beware of the risk of things freezing. If nothing else just turn the thermostat right down.

Read meters

What you’re left with after the big switch-off will be background energy consumption that you may or may not be aware of, and taking meter readings before and after the break will show you how much you’re using in this way.

It’s better still if you have half-hourly metering - get the data from your energy supplier or DC/DA. The amount and pattern of energy use when ‘nothing is happening’ can:

• Be a real eye opener and a stimulous for investigation / change

• Half-hourly electricity meter data can provide insight into ‘ghost like’ energy use at strange times of day

If you take the average daily consumption / cost when ‘nothing is happening’ it is likely to be happening 365 days per year. Reducing this is where the big wins comes from - give it a try, you might be surprised at what you find.