How Can You Reduce Your Office Electricity Bill?

Recently, the EU passed the EU Taxonomy legislation and adopted a  policy to cut down greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by 55% by 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2050. Singapore is already working on reducing emissions from its 2015 levels by 36% by 2030. Therefore, cutting energy use for your office will not only help to reduce the bill but also align your company with local and global trends in addressing the challenge of global warming and climate change. 

This post takes a closer look at the efforts you can take to keep down your electricity bill. So, what sustainability practice should you adopt? 

Benefits of Adopting Sustainability in Office Operations

For most companies, be they in real estate or hospitality, the primary goal for adopting sustainability is keeping the energy costs low, but there is a lot more for you in-store. Here is a summary of the main benefits to anticipate:

• Using clean energy (from renewable resources) in your office can help to increase the efficiency of different equipment and increase productivity. Lamps, computers, and other devices will also last longer and deliver higher value for money.
• In the real estate industry, sustainability can help to build a strong brand in the already highly competitive market. 
• It gives the satisfaction that you are part of the global efforts adopted to fight the problem of global warming, a problem that is real and needs to be addressed by every individual.
• The strategies come in handy in building a strong organizational culture. 
• Adopting sustainability is important for compliance with different laws and regulations. 
• If your company is listed in the stock market, reporting that you have adopted clean energy will be very helpful in winning investors’ trust. 

What Are the Best Practices in Sustainability and Reducing Electricity Bills?  

Here are some of the best methods that you can adopt to keep the electricity bill of your office low:

Save Electricity on Air Conditioning 

Cooling and heating buildings, while crucial, requires a lot of energy. This means that if your office can get an alternative source of energy that is cheaper and reliable, that will be an excellent path to follow. Here are some of the useful recommendations for saving electricity on air conditioning: 

• Keep the windows and doors closed when heating or cooling the room: This is very useful to ensure the heat or air conditioning does not escape from the room. It means that the house will heat up or cool faster, and related bills will come down significantly. 
• Use an energy management system so that you can determine the time for air conditioning. This means that when the heating or cooling is not needed, the HVAC will be off or operate at a reduced capacity. 
• Check the office for air-tightness. If your building is air-tight, loss of heat or cooled air will be low, and the HVAC will not need to use more energy to work harder. You can improve the air-tightness by installing weather strips on the windows and doors. 
• Install Continewm. These nets are a safe and sustainable solution to implement on any AC unit to save energy consumption. It lasts a lifetime and due to the reduction in energy consumption, it also reduces electricity bills by 25% on average. This is probably today the best energy-saving solution on the market.

Reduce the Energy Bill on Lighting 

It is estimated that about 15% of energy bills in most businesses go into lighting. Indeed, a lot of offices are left with lights on overnight and on weekdays. So, changing the office culture to include switching off the lights at night, on weekends, and any other time not in use can cut the bill significantly. Here are other suggestions to cut down energy bills on lighting.

• Shift to LED lamps because they use less energy. They also last 25 times longer than incandescent lamps and 2.5 times compared to fluorescent lights. 
• Use natural daylight as much as possible. Instead of positioning the desk on the corner, place it near the window to take advantage of natural light. This means that you will not need to keep the lights on all the time. 
• Set the lights to turn off automatically at the end of the day. As we indicated already, you can cut down the electricity bill for your real estate office by turning off lights when not in use. To ensure that you do not forget, installing a system that automatically turns off the lamps at the end of the day can be an excellent sustainable practice.
• Train your staff on sustainability. Although the effort to cut down electricity bills is noble, we must say that you need to involve everyone. Training your staff on the importance of energy-saving will ensure that activities like turning off lights and equipment when not in use become the norm. 

Cut Electricity Bill for the Office Equipment

Dozens, perhaps hundreds of people in your real estate company, hotel, office, or building, use printers, PCs, display screens, phones, and other pieces of equipment. If these devices are left on when not in use, especially without employing energy-saving tools, you will be accumulating an unnecessary energy bill. So, here is what you can do: 

• Set your computer to go into hibernation mode when not in use for a couple of minutes. When done using the computer, turn it off completely. 
• Set all the office equipment to energy-saving mode. Most devices, from PCs to display screens in your hotel or office, have this feature and it might be all you need to save energy. 
• Go for online communication and avoid printing hard copies. COVID-19 pandemic taught us that it is possible to communicate effectively without traveling or sending hard copies from one office to another. Therefore, shift to using emails and other digital meetings so that printing is only done when absolutely necessary.
• Only buy equipment with a high energy rating. Older equipment, especially those with a low energy rating, can use 50-90% more energy compared to modern models. For assurance of even higher energy performance, only acquire equipment with an ENERGY STAR rating.

Tricks to Save Electricity Bills in Your Office Kitchen 

If your office comes with a kitchen, this could also push up the electricity bill if left unchecked. For hotels, the kitchen is the main office because that is where meals for guests are prepared. So, how do you ensure that the electricity bill for the kitchen is as low as possible? Here are some tips to consider: 

• Avoid leaving taps running or dripping with water for longer than necessary. If a faucet is faulty, have it repaired immediately. 
• Do not put the fridge directly against the wall. The best practice is to leave a gap of about 10 cm behind the fridge so that air and heat can flow easily and save energy. 
• Switch off the appliances when not in use. Although it is true that leaving the equipment idling will not cause a huge energy drain, it can add up to a significant power bill over the months. So, switch them off completely when not in use.
• Avoid overfilling the electric kettles. When designing kitchen kettles, manufacturers recommend that you only fill the water to the recommended levels. Indeed, overfilling might not damage them, but it will always cost more energy. 

Tips for Selecting a Sustainable Practice for Cutting down Electricity Bill

Now that we have listed some of the best practices that you can use to cut down electricity bills in the office, how do you pick the perfect option? Here are some useful tips that you can use: 

• Use Continewm. As mentioned earlier, they are the best and most efficient energy-saving product on the market to help reduce your electricity bills.
• Go for the method that is easy to align with your company strategy. In the short term, you can go for a method like changing lamps to more eco-friendly models. In the long term, shift to new alternative sources of energy, such as solar panels. 
• Look for the method of cutting down power that fits within your budget. The lovely thing about energy saving is that there are different methods and they come at varying costs. So, if your company has a small balance sheet, look for the more affordable methods. However, larger and more complex offices should identify advanced models, such as ultra-modern smart climate control systems, with machine learning. 
• Easy to maintain infrastructure. As you select the most preferred system of cutting down electricity bills, ensure it is easy to diagnose and repair. Is the new and more energy-efficient HVAC system easy to repair? 
• Go for the method that makes reporting your efforts on sustainability easy. If you opt, say, for ultra-modern photovoltaic panels for the supply of office energy, it is pretty easy to demonstrate in a sustainability report to stakeholders. 
• Engage your employees on the overall themes of sustainability and climate change by participating in Climate Fresk. Through this interactive IPCC based workshop, your team will be able to grasp a better understanding of the causes and complications of climate change, and the importance of energy-saving techniques to reduce the effects. If interested, be sure to check out this link to learn more: https://bizsu.co/sustainability-workshops 
• Follow the latest trends in green-energy technologies because they are more efficient and affordable. For example, shifting to wind-generated power can be a good move, but installing solar panels on the roof or other space can be a better option for pulling down the energy-related bill. 

This post has demonstrated that if your office electricity bill is high, sustainability is the best route to cut it down. The practices we have highlighted above will not only help you to cut down energy-related bills but also increase productivity, sales, revenue, and profitability. Remember to review the strategy you adopt over time to ensure it is delivering the expected results both in the short-term and long-term.