Improve Energy Efficiency in Commercial Buildings

Commercial buildings need energy consumption quite much so that pursuing their operational excellence. The impact of this energy consumption on the environment and cost is evenly large.  

Buildings are responsible for about 40% of global energy and about 1/3 of greenhouse gas emissions. In this case, buildings have great potential to get energy efficiency, business cost savings, and reduce GHG emissions. Furthermore, it’s possible to reduce energy consumption by about %30-80 while using current technologies. 

That means you can have a sustainable, efficient, and operationally perfect working environment with the moves you will make on your energy performance. Take a look at how you can improve energy efficiency in your commercial buildings in a few steps. 

Do you have a plan?   

The first step needs to be clarifying how much saving will get and what you expect it to achieve. You can start by putting in a concrete number, and planning what methods are needed to achieve this goal. 

You may want to aim for the highest efficiency and savings possible, but your operational activities need to be taken into account when setting goals. At this point, your priorities may be included in the plan. Although your priorities hold great savings potential, there may be areas in which it is difficult to take action. However, by identifying them in the first step, you can pave the way for incorporating realistic and innovative solutions into your plan.  

Do you know that there are standards that you can comply with? 

Standards such as LEED and GRESB document whether your buildings have the necessary criteria to be efficient and sustainable. At the same time, you can consider and take a look at complying with these criteria in order to provide you with a roadmap. 

In addition, you can follow standards such as IPMVP (International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol) and ASHRAE (the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers). These standards will both help your legal compliance processes and open the door to productivity opportunities for you.   

Do you measure your energy consumption effectively? 

Even if you include goals in your plan, you cannot fully see the efficiency and savings opportunities without measuring your energy. To improve the energy efficiency of your building, you need to know exactly which part of your building you need to focus on and retrofit. For this, measuring how much energy is consumed in which areas is important.  

In general, in commercial buildings, retail stores or offices, we attain certain energy consumption breakdowns, such as lighting, HVAC and consumption of office equipment. By measuring what consumes how much energy, you can use these consumption breakdowns to be useful for your operational planning. 

How are knowledgeable your employees about your energy consumption? 

Making your energy consumption visible to your employees and raising awareness on this issue is extremely important for the implementation of your plans. It is a priority to raise their awareness about the actions to be taken as those who determine and manage all your operational processes. 

The effect of habits in the building on energy consumption may be greater than expected. Even if efficiency and savings points are determined, it would be beneficial to inform those working on them about their opportunities and responsibilities in terms of efficiency, savings and sustainability for behavioural change. 

Are you using Energy Management Software? 

Even if a lot of energy data is available for commercial buildings, this data is often stored in different systems and in various formats. That makes it complex to monitor and manage energy performance. With a Platform where you can manage your data end-to-end, you can manage all your energy consumption from a single point. 

By using Energy Management Software, you can instantly check your energy data and have many advantages that are difficult to achieve manually. For example, if you have devices that need energy continuity, you can receive instant notifications even in the smallest disruptions that may occur. With energy management systems, you can provide predictive maintenance on your devices. 

With digital energy management systems, you can archive data and create a reliable data set that you can use for future energy consumption estimations. 

Wrap up 

An easy-to-use Energy Management Software is excellent if you set your sight on efficiency and sustainability in your commercial buildings. Thanks to digital transformation, many processes will move on effortlessly and drive value for your business. 

With our Faradai Energy solution, you can digitise your end-to-end energy management, monitor and analyse all your consumptions from a single screen, and benefit from many points such as energy cost savings, operational efficiency, and tariff optimisation.