Do Small Companies Care About Energy Savings?: A Case Study

Abstract

Often times small companies will ignore very obvious energy saving opportunities even if they know that correcting the problem might save them few dollars. Two cases are presented here which deals with the energy saving opportunities found in typical small scale manufacturing plants. Several reasons are looked at why these recommendations get implemented and why not. Do plant owner's really care about energy savings? It seems that several factors influence their behavior (a) their understanding about their current energy needs (b) their need to save energy cost (c) utility and government subsidy (d) if the associated recommendation also saves company waste or labor cost and (e) if they have time or expertise to carry out the project.