Energy Conservation Strategy

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) have created an extremely helpful website, http://www.energystar.gov/, to help businesses and individuals work to conserve energy and use energy efficiently. The site provides resources, guidelines, and useful examples of what companies across the nation have done to increase efficiency and reduce costs. Much of the following information is based on information from that website.

Creating a Conservation Strategy

Owners who want to achieve the financial and environmental benefits of energy conservation need to have a strategy. The government’s Energy Star program provides the following guidelines for creating an energy conservation program:

1. Make a commitment: This includes allocating staff and funds for achieving improvements and creating an energy policy.
2. Assess performance: This involves gathering data, establishing baselines for energy usage, benchmarking activities that compare similar facilities or standards of performance, analyzing data, and conducting technical assessments and audits. An example of assessing performance would be to create a graph of energy consumption over time.
3. Set goals: Goals drive energy management activities and day-to-day decisions. Goals must be clear and measurable. For example, a measurable goal would be to reduce energy consumption by 10% within one year.
4. Create an action plan: Determine the scope of the goals. The scope could be organization-wide, a specific facility, specific processes, or certain equipment. A plan to retrofit lighting fixtures on a scheduled basis over the next six months is an example of an action plan for specific equipment.
5. Determine who should be involved and what their responsibilities will be.
6. Identify external roles: Determine the degree to which consultants, service providers, vendors, and other product providers will be used.
7. Determine resources.
8. Implement the action plan: To keep a good plan going, enlist the support and cooperation of key people in the organization. Communicate often about the status of the work.
9. Evaluate progress: Evaluating progress includes formal review of both energy use data and the activities carried out as part of the action plan as compared to your performance goals.
10. Provide recognition to those who helped the organization achieve its goals.