Energy Saving Tips

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Air Conditioning

  • Set air conditioning thermostat to the highest comfortable setting (set no lower than 78 degrees in office areas).
  • Start the air conditioner earlier in the day to pre-cool the building and reduce the load during the peak hours.
  • Use fans to circulate air.
  • Make sure shades are properly closed, especially on south and west windows, to reduce air conditioning load.
  • If your HVAC system can control the percentage of make up air, reduce it to code minimums requirement.

Lighting

  • Adjust work to light.
  • Reduce lighting levels to satisfy safety and aesthetic criteria.
  • Turn off unnecessary lighting.
  • Turn off decorative lighting.
  • Institute a building-wide system and signs to turn lights off.
  • Turn off lights in offices with windows.
  • Reduce parking garage lighting to minimum levels.

Ventilation

  • Turn off air handling during unoccupied hours.
  • Shut off conditioning to corridors, dead spaces, lobbies, storage areas, garages, etc.

Compressed Air

  • Reduce operating pressure.
  • Maintain air dryers to limit pressure drops.
  • Vent waste heat outside in summer.

Miscellaneous

  • Run all or part of process on another shift.
  • Start a single shift facility several hours early so the shift is completed earlier in the day.
  • Shut down and do maintenance work.
  • Reduce processes to nominal levels.
  • If there are operations that run only in the afternoon, reschedule them for the morning or late evening hours.
  • For processes that generate waste that is batch processed, store the waste and process it during off-peak hours.
  • Exhaust fans for paint booths and operations with odors or toxic fumes increase air conditioning loads and should be rescheduled to non-peak hours.
  • Schedule deliveries and shipments for morning or late evening hours to keep dock doors closed during peak hours.
  • Fill water tanks during the night so the Water Works can shift load to off-peak hours.
  • Recharge batteries during off-peak hours.
  • Recycle scrap products (plastics) during off-peak hours.
  • Be sure equipment not in use is actually off -- not just running idle.
  • Reduce the equipment speed for pumps, conveyors and blowers. This could cut loads in half.
  • When secondary loads on a transformer are turned off, also turn off the high side disconnect to the transformer.
  • Use adjustable speed drives (ASD).
  • Make sure computers enter a low-power "sleep" mode after 15 minutes of inactivity.
  • Make sure copiers go into a low-power "sleep" mode after 30 minutes of inactivity.
  • Ask tenants for help conserving energy.
  • Reduce the thermostat on electric water heaters to a temperature of 100 degrees.

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