Why Have a Building Energy Audit Performed?
We can help your business find ways to substantially reduce your energy usage and costs. To remain competitive, you have to do everything you can to keep your internal costs low. Many businesses struggle to cut costs, but reducing energy consumption is an easy way to help reduce your operating costs.
We’ll help you. Our Commercial Energy Audit Program, is an inspection of your business by a trained energy specialist. We can help you find the best ways to substantially reduce your energy usage and operating costs.
A good building energy audit will point the way to reduce your energy costs by 20%, 40%, 80% and more. For large organizations, this can be substantial, and could mean the difference between staying afloat and going under.
What is a Commercial Energy Audit?
A commercial building energy audit is a study of your building’s energy using equipment. Building energy audits often also look at water consumption (even though that is not technically considered energy). An energy auditor comes out to your building and interviews facility managers, inspects lighting, air conditioning, heating and ventilation equipment, controls, air compressors, water consuming equipment, and anything else that is using energy. The auditor will develop a list of energy conservation measures (ECMs) that could reduce energy usage and costs in your building.
Depending upon the level of building energy audit, the auditor will then quantify how much savings potential there is for each of these measures, and the costs associated with implementing them. Some measures will take decades to pay for themselves, while others will start paying for themselves within months.
Once you have read over your commercial building energy audit, our energy auditor will meet with you over the phone to discuss the report, and what your next steps are to start reducing your energy costs.
We investigate and quantify energy savings potential in:
- Lighting systems
- HVAC Systems and Controls
- Compressed Air Systems
- Renewable Energy Applications
- Electric Motors and Drives
- Process Systems
- Steam Systems
- Heat Recovery
- Building Envelope Upgrades
- Switching Utility Providers or Utility Rates
- and more!
How much money/energy can be saved by getting an energy audit?
When talking about possible energy savings in a facility from energy consulting, it’s impossible to make an accurate estimation without knowing many of the factors at play in the facility. Factors such as facility size, equipment, equipment usage, personnel, lighting, current utility usage, and more can directly affect your energy savings.
With that said, we’ve seen savings upwards of 80% on some facilities, with the average savings being around 40-60%. If the facility has already had energy audits in the past, it’s possible that the facility is already efficient, and in that case, there wouldn’t be much we could do in the way of energy savings. If the facility has been in operation for many years without having had an energy audit, it’s very possible that we can save you lots of money.
How much time does it take to perform an energy audit?
Just as with determining how much money can be saved by performing an energy audit, it’s difficult to estimate how long an energy audit will take in your facility.
There are many factors to consider when estimating how long an energy audit will take, but the biggest one is probably the overall facility size. Since we usually do large facilities with sizes ranging from 50 thousand square feet to 2 million square feet, we can roughly estimate how long an energy audit will take to perform on a facility around that size.
For a simple overview audit, an energy audit will usually only take half a day to do a walk-through, and about two weeks to calculate savings and prepare a report.
For an ASHRAE Level 1 audit on a facility sized around 100,000 sq ft, an energy audit will probably take up to one day to complete a walk-through, and less than month to calculate savings and prepare a report.
For a more in-depth ASHRAE Level 2 audit on a facility sized around 100,000 sq ft, an energy audit will probably take one day to complete a walk-through, and less than month to calculate savings and prepare a report.
For the most in-depth audit possible, the Investment-Grade audit, on a facility sized around 100,000 sq ft, an energy audit will generally involve a three to six day walk-through, and anywhere from one to two months to complete a report.
If you have a smaller or larger facility, an industrial facility, or if you have a facility with an unusually high number of energy-consuming devices, the time required to complete an audit can vary greatly. In order for us to provide you with an accurate time estimate, please feel free to Contact Us so we can get to know your facility a little bit better.
Find out how much you could be saving today! Start by sending us a copy of your current utility bill(s) – CLICK HERE