Saving money is usually a major priority for most small businesses, especially in these uncertain times. The energy crisis has had a significant impact on many businesses. As a result, sales for businesses have been affected, leading to panic for many business owners. This is the reason why it makes sense to trim costs so that your business can survive. Regardless of whether you intend to reduce emissions, have low expenditure, or save time, there are various areas where your business can save cash. This article discusses the best way a small business can save energy usage.

Reduce energy consumption on your business premises

The simplest way you can make any meaningful savings for your small business is by reducing energy usage. You can decide to switch energy suppliers so that you can get the right energy tariff for your business. In such a case, you can visit www.utilitybidder.co.uk so that they can help you make the switch.

Remember that in most cases, a cut in energy costs can translate to the bottom line benefit once the sales increase. Many small businesses usually don’t have the resources or spare time to invest in energy management programs, but there are various changes that you can make with no or little cost. The truth is that no or low-cost activities can often lower energy costs.

For example, heating is usually an area that has the highest energy usage in business premises. This is often because of overheating like heating corridors of storage areas just like occupied areas. Therefore, there can be many easy and cheap opportunities in your company to save cash on heating.

You should note that the thermostat can be set higher when the heating is on for a longer period. This means that your business energy bills can be higher. Hence, you need to opt for an energy-efficient approach when it comes to thermostats as well as time controls so that you can reduce your expenditure.

Ideally, you need to make sure that the heating should only come on when you need it. Also, you need to place thermostats away from direct heating sources, draughts, and sunlight. Above all, ensure that radiators don’t have obstructions, so desks should not be too close to them.

Besides controlling the temperature for your business premises with thermostats, it’s also crucial to avoid losing heat. You can prevent cold air from entering your building. The best way you can do this is by making sure that your property is well-insulated, especially if you use an older building.  

You should remember that something as minor as leaving lights on in storerooms or meeting rooms can easily go unnoticed. And lighting is usually the second largest area of energy usage for most businesses. Regardless of whether it’s maintaining lights, switching off, or using natural light, you can find several low-cost solutions that can save your business money and improve the working environment. 

Aside from saving on lighting and heating, your business can also lower your energy usage by checking how your equipment is utilized in the factory, warehouse, office, or even kitchen. You need to use energy-saving mode or low-power mode for your copiers, computers, and printers. It’s also a good idea to utilize laptops rather than desktops because laptops use more energy than laptops. And, you need to turn off equipment when you close your business premises.

Adopt new technologies

Studies have shown that while most small businesses desire to do more when it comes to energy efficiency, it can be hard in practice. This is because many business owners don’t have the resources and time to implement such good practices. But technology continues to be developed and improved to assist to make things easier for small businesses.  

It’s important to track your energy consumption patterns and measure the results of your changes if you want to reduce your business energy usage. This is the reason why you need smart meters for your business.

A smart meter is a great tool that can assist your small business to improve efficiency and reduce overheads. This is because a smart meter can automatically transmit accurate meter readings to your energy supplier, meaning that you can view the amount of energy your small business is utilizing in real time.

Hence, using a smart meter means that you can check and make changes to your lighting, heating, and equipment so that you can see the differences in your overall energy consumption and measure the success with data.  

Even better, you can decide to use energy consumption apps that can help you to work out the information provided by your smart meter. This can also assist you to understand your small business’s energy consumption as well as enable you to make the right decisions on the best way you can save money by utilizing less energy.

For instance, a business energy app is designed to monitor your business energy consumption. A business energy app needs to sync up with a business smart meter so that you can view simple graphs that show your business energy consumption by every meter point on the app. Hence, you can analyze the consumption patterns, spikes, and trends and see when your business is utilizing the most energy.

No doubt, this is considered to be another great tool that you can use to measure the success of your energy-usage changes. And, you can also utilize it to uncover where to begin your energy-saving methods. For instance, if energy consumption is usually high during non-working hours, you can first decide whether there is any lighting or equipment that is being left on unnecessarily.

Besides this, there are also various other functions of energy consumption apps that can assist to save your small business money and time. Therefore, whether you desire to control your payments, reduce the problem of energy management, or have access to your data 24/7, you need to download an energy app so that your business can benefit from it.