How to save electricity in your office

How to save electricity in your office 

When 2.2 million homes and 2100 businesses in Sydney turned off their lights for one hour on March 31, 2008, it reduced the city’s energy consumption by 10.2% for one hour.

Just to give a better perspective, that is equivalent to taking 48,616 cars off the road for a year! Looking at the impact, Earth Hour 2008 saw 24 global cities participating, which included 286,000 people and over 20,000 businesses. While you are reading this piece, hundreds of companies and individuals are signing up, by the minute, for Earth Hour 2009.

That’s just about global warming. There’s also something closer to home—electricity consumption burns a big hole in the pockets of businesses. The good news is that there are things that you could do to slow down the manically racing meter.

Air conditioning optimization
The most obvious cost-cutting can happen by using ceiling fans instead of air conditioners whenever possible. The differential in operating cost is approximately 30 paise per hour for fans as opposed to Rs 10 for air conditioning. Replacing the metal blades of a fan with fiber blades can save 20% energy overall.

However, if air conditioning is all that you have, each degree set above 22° Celsius will use 3-5% less energy. The recommended temperature to set the thermostat at is 25° Celsius, which is both comfortable and cost efficient.

Further, going for multi-coated glazing windows helps in restraining cool air escape. It is also advisable to install weather-strips under doors, windows, and ducts to avoid air leakage. Getting multiple coated glazes on glass windows also reduces air conditioning energy usage by about 40 percent.

It also helps to install green meshes on west facing windows and doors, so that it blocks direct sunlight heat and reduces the load on the air conditioners. This can be uninstalled in winters to let sunlight come in and reduce the need of heaters. Many businesses also have a large number of plants with drip irrigation, which helps to reduce the heat as it increases moisture in the air.

For those who are planning on installing air conditioning in new offices, it is advisable not to go for centralized air conditioning. The reason, says Lipika Sud, Honorary Secretary, Indian Institute of Interior Designers (IIID, Delhi), “Because it is a single unit, it has to be run for the entire office, irrespective of selective places where it is required after normal work hours. I would definitely recommend split air conditioning, which allows you to cool specific pockets where the cooling is required.” Besides this, cleaning the filter of air conditioners enables quick cooling while being energy efficient.

DARE/electricity hogging elements

- Air conditioning - Backup (generators, UPS, etc) - IT components (PCs, data centers, etc) - Lifts/elevators - Lighting systems - Refrigeration - Water purification

Backup equipment basics
“The rule of the thumb,” says Pratik Chube, Country Manager, Emerson India, “is to take high efficiency products. This depends on what the utilization of the product is going to be. You should map and synchronize the products efficiency to manage the load.”

For a new setup, there are three basic assessments when it comes to buying power backup solutions. First, it should be a reliable solution, which means that it should not disturb critical continuity. Second, it should have scalability, so that the solution is future proof and can be incorporated without making legacy equipment defunct. Third is that one should not look
just at the capex (capital expenses). The payback time should be quantifiable in terms of productivity or in finances.

DARE/ITC green center

How they save on power

It is the largest building in India that has been awarded the highest rating of Platinum by the US Green Building Council. It saves over 50 per cent in energy costs compared to conventional buildings. All that glass you see on the building? It’s special e-glass, which filters out all the heat and noise, but not the light. The roof is coated with special high-reflectance ‘albedo’ paint. These two features alone are responsible for the building’s 375-ton AC plant as opposed to the 500-ton plant that was initially suggested. Walk into the large atrium and you immediately notice the absence of artificial lighting. This is possible because of the large skylight and windows surrounding the atrium. Also in the lobby is a touch-screen terminal, listing out ITC’s Green initiatives. Looking at a typical office inside the building, full-length glass ensures ample light. The electrical lights meanwhile have sensors, and will come on only when needed. Niranjan Khatri, GM of ITC’s WelcomEnviron initiatives explained, “An office building built using conventional methods is a ‘sick’ building.” Studies have also shown that working in natural light increases productivity and reduces lethargy. If employees fall ill regularly or are not at their productive best, the company actually pays for it through lifecycle costs. This kind of health cost has not been quantified yet. The Green Center however, uses special carpets and paints with low VOC (volatile oxide compounds). CO2 sensors refresh air if needed. A more productive workforce leads to greater profitability in the long run. The rooftop houses the solar power water heating system with a 4000-liter tank. Outside, all lights are capped to prevent night sky pollution. This is out of respect for nocturnal bird life and astronomers who find it difficult to view stars because of the excessive light given out from a city.

You found it.  If you have a question about saving electricity, or how much electricity something uses, this is the place.  I cover pretty much everything.

And I've put lots of effort into making the information truly useful:  I supply a ton of actual numbers, some calculators to help figure the usage for your own situation, and explanations about what works and why in plain English.  I've always hated how-to guides thet skimp on the goods: sometimes a topic is just as mysterious after you've read a guide.  I vowed that this guide would not be one of those.

For starters, I explain exactly what a kilowatt hour is and how much you pay for one. I then show you how to calculate exactly how much electricity your household appliances use, so you know which items are guzzling the most juice (and which ones are the best targets for savings).  You'll also learn exactly how to read your electric meter, if you like. (Find that on any other website.)  Finally, I've answered countless questions from readers about saving electricity. If you have a question, it's probably answered here already.

Saving electricity doesn't just save money, it also saves energy, which means less pollution.  This might be surprising, because you don't see or smell any pollution when you turn on the lights, unlike when you fire up your car.  But the pollution is there—it just happens at the power plant instead of on-site.  Most electricity is generated by burning coal and other fossil fuels.  Every time you turn on the lights, you create a little pollution. (See the sidebar.) In fact, the average home pollutes more than the average car! (See my Carbon Footprint Calculator for the numbers.)  So saving electricity doesn't just put money in your pocket, it helps keep the air and water clean, too.

But don't just take my word for it. The legendary James Hansen, one of the first scientists to warn about global warming way back in the 80s, recently said that  That's because, as he says, we can't stop the oil from being burned for transport, since if we don't use it, another country will. But we can certainly stop burning our own country's coal.  And the quickest way to reduce coal emissions by 50%, is to reduce our electricity consumption by 50%.

Note also that as the age of oil is coming to a close (we've already used more than half of the oil that exists on the planet), our energy appetite puts more pressure for utilities to build dangerous nuclear power plants.

Thinking about going solar?  Solar is indeed now affordable in most cases, and is often cheaper than grid energy.  My concern about this is that, just like with cars, people are looking for an alternative fuel source so they can continue blissfully using ridiculous amounts of energy.  A better approach is for us to just stop using such a ridiculous amount of energy in the first place!

In reality, conservation is pretty easy; the problem is that most people don't want to do it.  That's why people buy gass-guzzlers in droves.  When I go to the gym, I see that almost everyone has turned on the little TV attached to the treadmill or exercycle, never turning them off when they're finished.  That's an easy way to see why we've got a problem. If most people won't do an easy thing, like turning off a TV when they're not using it, how can we expect them to do things that actually require a tiny amount of effort?

But you're here, you're reading this, so you're the kind of person willing to make some modest changes, if not for the environment, then at least to save some money.  Either way, good for you!  If you want to ave energy, then there's no better place to find out about it than here.  And the time is right, too. U.S. taxpayers can now get a whoppingfor installing things like heat pumps and solar energy systems.

And if you really want to lessen your you'll also want to look into

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Lesson #1: Attack the biggest energy-users first

Before we get to the tips on specific appliances, remember one simple thing: You'll save more electricity by dealing with the biggest electricity-guzzlers rather than worrying about items that don't use much electricity.

Obsessing about whether it's better to boil a cup of water on an electric burner or in a microwave, or whether you wear out your lights quicker by turning them off rather than keeping them on, is a waste of time and misses the point. Such trivia won't make a dime's worth of difference in your electric bill. It's the bigger things that matter. With that in mind, you'll first want to address the big energy users in your home first, such as your:

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Here are some sample savings you might be able to enjoy:

Easy Strategies
Strategy	Up front cost	Savings per year
(1) Use space heaters to heat only the rooms you're in (rather than a central system that heats the whole house), and turning off the heat when you're not home.	$80	$1023
(2) Use ceiling fans instead of the air conditioner	$100 if you don't already have ceiling fans	$438
(3) Turn off lights you're not using	$0	$274
(4) Use a clothesline or a laundry rack instead of a dryer	$20	$196
(5) Sleep your computer when you're not using it	$0	$178
(6) Wash laundry in cold water instead of hot or warm	none	$152
(7) Turn off a single 100-watt light bulb, from running constantly	$0	$131
(8) Replace ten 60-watt light bulbs with compact fluorescents	$32	$123
Total	$232 once	$2515 every year
Aggressive Strategies
(9) Replace top-loading washer with front-loading washer	$500	$99
(10) Replace 1992 fridge with newer, Energy Star model	$440	$75
Total	$940 once	$174 every year
Assumptions:  (Calculations are always only as good as the assumptions.  See ) Sample electrical rate of 15¢/kWh. (1) One 5000-watt central system, always on, running 40mins/hr. for four months, vs. two 1500-watt heaters running 8 hours a day for four months.  Of course, not everyone cant heat their living area adequately this way, but some can. (2) A 2.5-ton, 3500-watt AC 24 hours a day (15 mins/hr) for five months, vs. two 48" ceiling fans on high (75 watts each), 12 hours/day. (3) Five 100-watt light bulbs on for 10 hours a day when they don't need to be. (4) 50¢/load as per the    page, 7.5 loads a week. (5) Computer on for 24 hrs/day @ 160 watts, vs. sleeping 21 hrs/day @ 5 watts (6) Electric water heater; 7.5 loads/week. (8) CFL's are 15 watts, lights run 5.5 hours a day. (9) 1/3 hot washes, 2/3 warm washes, water heated electrically, electric dryer, 7.5 loads/week. Includes water costs. (10) Replacing a 900 kWh/year fridge with a 400 kWh/year Energy Star model.  Non-Energy Star fridge costs $400 and saves $60/yr. All fridge sizes are 18cf.  Fridge prices checked at Sears in Nov. 2010.