How to Make Your Commercial Building More Energy-Efficient
A commercial building’s energy efficiency affects its power bill and value. Furthermore, significant advancements in commercial building efficiency may reduce carbon footprint. However, most small and new businesses cannot afford to invest in retrofitting old structures. There are always low-cost ways to make your headquarters more energy-efficient. If you don’t know how to do this, we will show you how to make your commercial building more energy-efficient.
1. DO PRELIMINARY MEASUREMENTS
When renovating your commercial building, you should first calculate your building’s total energy use. Benchmarking is an excellent way to compare and improve energy efficiency. You must do this to ensure that the additions you will make to your building are working. If you are serious about making your commercial building more energy-efficient, you should determine how much electricity it currently consumes. Check your monthly bill and overall power consumption to accomplish this.
2. ENERGY-SAVING LIGHT BULBS ARE MORE ENERGY-EFFICIENT
A lot of power goes into lighting in most buildings, not just commercial ones. Because of this, if you want to improve the energy efficiency of your building, lighting should be your first consideration. The lights that most office spaces use are usually incandescent light bulbs. This form of light is very energy inefficient. It uses too much power. Therefore, to eliminate that issue, you should consider swapping from incandescent to energy-saving light bulbs. You would see a big difference if you just changed your old light bulbs for new energy-saving ones.
Since many businesses leave their lights on indefinitely, even in spaces with little foot traffic, energy-saving light bulbs would come in handy. Therefore, one of the most cost-effective ways to improve commercial building energy efficiency is to use energy-efficient light bulbs. If you use energy-saving light bulbs instead of incandescent ones, you can improve the energy efficiency of your office building. You can also save money on your electricity bill by switching to energy-saving light bulbs.
Energy-saving light bulbs will go a long way to making your commercial building more energy efficient.
3. INSTALL LIGHT CONTROLS TO MAKE YOUR BUILDING MORE ENERGY-EFFICIENT
People frequently forget how much energy lights in stairwells and hallways use when they are always on. You can address this issue if you install a light control system. For example, you can use motion sensors for lights in areas of your commercial building that people don’t often traverse, reducing the energy your building consumes. There are several kinds of lighting control systems that you can use. The main three types are:
- Motion Sensors: Motion sensors can control lighting. When the sensors detect movement, they activate. These sensors are for outdoor, stairwell, and hallway lighting.
- Dimmer switches: Dimmer switches are sophisticated switches that enable users to alter the brightness of their space. With the lights not being on full power — energy is saved.
- Occupancy Sensor: An occupancy sensor is beneficial for controlling interior lights. When a person enters the premises, occupancy sensors activate. These sensors automatically switch off when they detect no movement.
4. SYSTEMS FOR VENTILATION AND AIR CONDITIONING
One of the highest energy costs of commercial buildings comes from the HVAC system, especially for commercial buildings in Tampa, where it gets hot during the summer. If you wish to lower the energy you spend on heating and cooling your building; you need to think about two things. The first thing is the type of cooling system you choose. For example, you will always find the most efficient fans and motors in high-quality AC systems. It is worth buying a more expensive system because you will save money in the long run. The second thing influencing your AC energy efficiency is how well you have installed the system. For this reason, you should need to make sure that the right engineers are going to install it for you.
A properly installed air conditioning system will be more energy-efficient.
Another element that will influence the effectiveness of your HVAC system is how air-tight your building is. If you notice air leaks, you can hire an engineering team to help you fix the issue. If you decide to go this route, you should consider moving your furniture out of the way for the duration of the remodeling. Leave the heavy lifting to the pros and focus on fixing the issues. Hiring movers in Tampa to help you move furniture is your safest bet. Aside from that, you should switch off heating and cooling in areas your employees don’t use. You may even program cooling systems to switch off the air conditioning when everyone leaves the workplace. These methods can significantly increase the energy efficiency of your business property.
5. RENEWABLE ENERGY ADVANTAGES
Solar panels, air-source heat pumps, and wind energy are effective ways to improve commercial building energy efficiency and save money. These will assist you in lowering your energy costs and increasing your structure’s efficiency. Furthermore, if you use renewable energy, you won’t have to worry about power outages. Installing solar panels would be the most cost-effective option in this case. If you add this feature, ensure you find the right people to help set it up. Be prepared; these projects can sometimes take longer than expected.
Solar panels are the clear energy-efficient choice for utilizing renewable energy sources.
IN CONCLUSION
As you can see, many ways to make your commercial building more energy-efficient. We wanted to cover a variety of available options, ranging from something as easy as switching the kind of lighting you have to something as significant as upgrading your heating and air conditioning system. I hope you can put some of the information we’ve covered here to good use. All you have to do now is choose wheatear you want to use one or all of the suggestions we gave you.
