Business owners and property managers are under constant business pressure to improve tenant services, make their buildings more “Energy Efficient” and accomplish all of this while reducing operating expenses year-over-year. For these reasons (and others), they are always looking for ways to save energy.

These “opposing” objectives bring to light the business challenges faced by business owners each and every day.  They are too busy to focus on energy efficiency with so many other things interrupting their daily activities.  When the Utility bills arrive, they just pay them and move on, as they are keenly aware of the impact on operating costs.

Business owners have a general understanding of how much the utilities cost each month but they are not necessarily aware of how those costs convert into consumption of kilowatts, kilowatt hours, Therms, gallons or cubic feet.

For example, this baseline tracking brings to light why the electricity usage might be high on a weekend when:

• The factory is closed but the heat and air conditioning are BOTH running with no-one in the building!
• An air compressor is running when no machines are operating.
• The lights are on in the building at midnight when there is no second shift.
• Every desktop computer monitor is left on when the entire staff goes home for the evening.
• Common area lighting remains on all weekend. A potential for additional savings exists with the installation of motion sensors and conversion to compact florescent lighting.

The path to reducing energy expenses is best served by using energy management software as a service to establish a baseline energy consumption profile.   This easily tracks and monitors the costs of energy and the volume of kwHours and natural gas therms consumed by buildings, and begins to analyze why certain things are happening.

For business owners and property managers to begin saving money on their energy bills, they should consider these and other methods to pay less for energy as well as use less energy.