Author: Paul Hargest

Many businesses have fallen victim to the energy crisis as rising energy costs and overheads are eating into their profit margins. As result of this, businesses are facing operational difficulties and financial constraints which are stunting their perpetual growth and profit maximization. However, the current energy crisis serves an opportunity for businesses to reevaluate their approach to consuming energy, and implementing strategies that minimize energy costs, provide energy independence, and protect them from any unforeseeable energy crises.

The best approach to minimizing energy consumption and energy costs is building optimization. Given the volatility and unpredictability of the energy market, a business must have the ability to control their energy consumption and energy costs without adhering to the situation of the energy market. Therefore, improving the energy performance of your assets and operations is an efficient and sustainable concept to demonstrate.

Building optimization is a proven concept where businesses use smart technological means to efficiently use resources and energy, whilst creating a comfortable and safe environment to live and work in. Businesses can integrate and connect legacy systems such as Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, building

management system (BMS) and artificial intelligence (AI) to help control and optimize the energy and operational performance of the business. Such systems can provide a holistic, real-time data insight of a business and find areas for improvements, using enhanced connectivity and automation or proposing strategies to reduce energy consumption and energy costs.

Every building regardless of its size or operation will consume energy daily. Whether it is one building or a large estate, the risk of overlooking proper energy management can be costly to the building owner, the occupants, and the environment.

Energy Intensity Ratio is a good way to check the performance of your building because energy consumption can be determined per floor area, occupancy, or both. This can then be compared to industry standards to confirm the efficiency of your building.

The non-domestic national energy efficiency data framework, published in 2022, used total energy consumption and energy intensity to compare building with different uses and sizes. Typically, the total energy consumption tends to increase as building size increases. However, energy intensity conveys that smaller sized buildings (0-50 square meters) have a higher electricity and gas consumption per floor area when compared to larger buildings (greater than 5,000 square meters). If we focus solely on consumption, a large estate will naturally consume more energy than a single building but if we consider energy intensity, a single building would likely to be more inefficient. What this tells us is that energy management matters for a single or small sized building and large-sized buildings or estates.

A more conscious approach will need to go into energy management as a building estate expands but that does not mean that it must be difficult especially if the right system has been developed from the onset. There may be a hierarchy in decision making when it comes to energy management policies and changes but there needs to be leadership interest, knowledge, and responsibility. This ensures the efficient and effective performance of the energy management system.

Regardless of the size of the estate the energy management tools remain the same. There needs to be an energy management strategy in place that targets energy consumption, cost, and emissions. Performance must be monitored for continual improvement to policy, data, optimization, and performance. It is important to have a skilled and competent energy manager to do this.