Conducting Your Own Energy Audit

Abstract

Why should you or anyone be interested in conducting a time intensive energy audit. What equipment is needed? When should you get started? Who should do it? The answer to Why is that energy costs are cutting into a company’s profit every minute of every day. Inefficient energy usage is like having money lost or stolen. Energy costs may account for up to 25% of a company’s expenses and hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. To answer What will be discussed later in this paper. The answer to When is that the energy audit needs to be done now! Every day and month of delay is throwing money away that could be put back into the business or distributed as profit. To answer Who should do the study depends on the complexity and size of the utility bill. Large utility bills, $100,000 or more, or a large facility, 100,000 square feet or more, may indicate the skills of a professional energy engineer are required to analyze the facility’s energy consumption and recommend the proper energy conservation measures needed. Smaller facilities usually can be energy analyzed by company personnel who have some energy training. This paper is written to assist those personnel in conducting their own energy audits. Even larger facilities may decide to do an in-house energy audit before they hire outside assistance in order to get an idea of the amount and cost of energy being used and possible savings. This can be compared to the cost of the outside energy audit.