- A 3 Part Series on Energy Conservation -
In today’s financial environment, rising energy costs and availability is a big concern. To adapt to this challenge, the HVAC and Lighting industries are improving their existing product’s efficiencies and inventing new systems daily to reduce energy consumption; the majority of the time the premise of these products is to reduce the “human factor.” Although they are valuable and many produce solid results, many of the same benefits could be achieved with one simple, low to no cost tool, education.
OK, education. It’s too simple. That can’t produce the results we need, I mean with all this new technology at our disposal, how could basic education help win the battle to conserve energy? In short, don’t reinvent the wheel. We already know how to affect change as the concept of energy conservation is nothing new to most.
Many of us were brought up with a parent who would remind us of our improper actions by screaming at us as we ran out to play through the patio door and leaving it wide open as if it wasn’t even there. ”Shut the door!” my mother yelled, “Are you trying to heat the outdoors!” Perhaps it was another classic such as, “Turn off the $#^** lights when you’re not in the room!” or “Why do you have the heat turned on when your are in shorts and have no shirt on? Put on some clothes for heaven’s sake!” Sound familiar?
• Education Has Always the Best Return on Investment •
All joking aside, our parents and grandparents had it right. Practicing simple conservation techniques is a key to successfully reducing operating costs and energy consumption. The yelling and screaming was just their way of trying to educate us.
Let’s look at several scenarios. First, we can install high-tech lighting controls in an office environment, and the owner could expect a reasonable reduction in electric consumption of around 10 to 15 percent. The cost of these systems range from moderate to high compared to many other improvements. Depending on the current efficiency of the lighting, the return on this investment could be as little as 6 months and as high as 10 years. Compare these savings to simply educating the employees and maintenance staff to turn off the lights when they are not being used. In this case, an owner should expect a reduction in electric consumption of around 5 to 10 percent. The beauty of basic education is that the capital costs to achieve these savings are $0, nada, nothing. ROI starts the second people put the practices into place. At the end of the day, which is the better value?
More to come in the next issue of Architecturally Speaking