It’s a very challenging time to be in business at the moment. And, with a greater push than ever before into sustainable practices and renewable energy, you as a business owner should be asking how you too can optimize your business’s energy consumption. The first place to start is with your machinery, especially if you have larger, heavy power-consuming devices.

Use Trusted Brands and Suppliers

The best way to ensure maximum energy efficiency is to buy trusted and rated energy-efficient equipment. However, thanks to often devious marketing tactics, you can never be quite sure which brands are accurate with their efficiency ratings. If you don’t want to wade through the market, then use a supplier you can trust like C&B Equipment to ensure you get the best equipment for the job at hand. Replacing ageing machinery with newer, more efficient options will not only save you a fortune in energy costs, but you should also find an increase in production with the modern improvements to equipment design and usability.

Deploy an Energy Management Team

If you have a large enough business or even just a high enough power draw, it may save you money to set up a team to monitor, manage, and optimize your business’s energy usage. Creating a team to manage the information, calculate and oversee the usage, and assist in your business’s power needs is one of the best methods to manage and improve efficiency. The team’s main job will be to create an energy usage plan and then ensure its implementation. Meetings between members should be held regularly to ensure that the plan is followed through and that any problems that may arise can be quickly and easily dealt with. The team can also recommend any other optimization strategies based on the information they gather during the plan’s implementation to ensure maximum efficiency. 

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Monitor Power Use

When you set up the means to monitor your equipment’s power use and analyze the data, you can build a detailed picture of how your business is using electricity during production. This will allow you to make informed decisions about how to make your operation more efficient. If you find that some of your equipment is drawing a lot of power, you can choose to switch it off for longer periods while you wait for production behind that machine to build up. Monitoring power use can also highlight inefficient energy use habits. Understanding how machines are using power can also help you decide when to make use of off-peak electricity tariffs so you can run your large power-consuming machines during that time.

Use the Energy Data You Gather 

Being able to analyze the historical power usage of equipment around your workplace can provide statistics on how machines’ power use has fluctuated or decreased and help forewarn you about potential breakdowns. When you see the power usage of something become unstable, this is often an indication of a failing machine. Without a history of power use, it would be difficult to notice any alarming consumption trends, especially when the change in consumption is subtle or irregular. There is also software available that can help other operators, management, or engineers in a multitude of ways. Operators can keep track of the data to ensure their safety when using the equipment. Management can use energy efficiency data to plan trends or budgets. Engineers can scrutinize the data for any issues or problems that may need their attention.

Switch It Off, Or Turn It Down

With a good grasp of the data, you should now be able to use it to make good decisions about how to efficiently control the machinery, namely, when to turn the machine off or just slow it down. When there are a large number of machines in operation, simple and small actions like turning off lights or displays that are not in use can save a considerable amount of power and money. Buying equipment that automatically slows down or switches off when they go idle is a great method to improve energy efficiency. Remember — run your machinery to meet demand, and never more.

The simplest way to stay on top of your power requirements and usage is to purchase energy-efficient machines and upgrades from trusted equipment suppliers and get them to bake as much efficiency into their designs as they can. They are the experts after all. Optimizing your power consumption through monitoring and reacting to the results not only saves you money in electric bills but also can extend the lifespan of machines and reduce maintenance, saving downtime and even more of your hard-earned money.