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Calculate Energy Savings

Business Start Up Guides

Calculate Energy Savings : Assess Your Savings Potential

You can't see energy, so it can be difficult to visualize the potential savings lying undiscovered in your facility. However, you can see and easily understand those utility bills you receive each month. Visualize your energy bill being lower by 25 to 30 percent, or even more. Visualize your potential energy savings as an appreciable pile of cash that could go to your bottom line instead of to your local utility.

Clearly managing energy use makes good business sense, but remember, "you can't manage what you can't measure." Your facility' energy use for lighting, heating, cooling, office equipment and other systems can be easily identified, measured and analyzed. The result is a new and interesting look at your facility - where simple identification and measurement techniques provide the first steps toward eliminating waste and saving money.

You can begin the process today by pulling out your utility bill file and looking at what you are paying each month and each year for energy with the knowledge that you can reduce energy waste and reclaim much of the money you are paying out for energy. Then use the following resources to:

Identify how you use energy compared to similar type facilities.

Did You Know?

Your peak electricity use usually occurs during a time of day when rates are at their highest. If you are charged a "demand rate" on your electric bill, you pay a fee based on your peak amount of electricity consumption. Lowering your peak rate of usage can save big!

Assess your facility and discover energy-efficient upgrade opportunities.

Financial Analysis

Turning Energy Into Cash

It always pays to do your homework before investing in energy-efficient equipment such as ENERGY STAR qualified products. What products and equipment really work? How much will it cost to install? Where do you find the money? How quickly will you recover your investment? There are many resources to help you get the answers that will work for your business.

Analysis Tools and Resources

Incentives, Rebates and Other Resources

Another consideration in funding energy-efficiency upgrades is the price of the equipment. Why pay more than you must for efficient products and equipment? Perhaps your Chamber of Commerce, trade or professional business association would sponsor a group purchase in which you and other small businesses pool your buying power for volume discounts. Read more about this strategy to stretch your investment capital in ENERGY STAR Small Business's Group Purchasing Fact Sheet (159KB).

Did You Know?

Bill comparison provides you with a technique to quantify your savings after implementation of energy-efficient measures.

The two most common financial evaluation tools are simple payback and internal rate of return (IRR).

Simple Payback: The number of years it takes to recover the cost of the upgrade from the savings.
Internal Rate of Return: Compares the financial results of an upgrade against other investments.

Energy Saving Calculators from ENERGY STAR

ENERGY STAR qualified products are equal to or better than standard products of the same type, but the good news is they use less energy! And since they use less energy, ENERGY STAR qualified products save you money on your utility bills while helping to protect the environment by causing fewer harmful greenhouse gas emissions. The following links provides access to calculators of various types of ENERGY STAR qualified products. These calculators estimate the annual dollar and energy savings you can expect by installing an ENERGY STAR qualified version.

Food Service Equipment

Commercial

Residential

Heating, Air Conditioning and Ventilation (HVAC) - Residential

Lighting Products

Office Products and Electronics

Visit ENERGY STAR's Purchasing and Procurement page to learn about how to make smart, energy efficient buying decisions for your office or home based business.