Where to Start? – Energy!

Energy!
Particularly in SA, due to our dependence on coal fired electricity generation, and rapidly rising energy costs. Fast evolving "green" technologies offer plenty of sustainable solutions to help building owners and the environment. Added to this, carbon caps (mandatory limits on carbon dioxide emissions)which are not in effect yet, will in all likelihood be imposed upon business and industry in the near future.

So, where to start?
With an Energy Analysis: Before considering costly exercise of generating your own energy on site, optimize energy usage to reduce consumption and costs. A preliminary energy audit are cheap or free, and can even be done online at the Energy Star Web site. While this is a US based website, it will give you some ideas as to how to reduce your energy consumption. A more detailed analysis might cost a little, but is necessary to determine the cost benefit and payback time of various options.

Next step?
Having established where your building is using energy, you can look for solutions to reduce consumption. This is particularly true for heating and cooling, which can be done at a minimal cost. If you are running under-floor heating (or any other types of heating) or air-conditioning, consider just turning the thermostat up or down (as the case may be) by just a couple of degrees. The change to the feel of the room will be negligible, but the savings considerable. Taking things further, turn off systems when you leave a room and make sure they are room specific (not serving an entire building at once). New technology includes motion control sensors, which sense when people are in a room and adjust lighting and air systems accordingly. The other common issue is lighting - older light fittings produces more heat and use more energy. By changing lights, building owners can save money on cooling and general energy consumption.

New buildings - Energy efficient technologies.
In new buildings, installing new technology usually costs more (at least initially – depending on how quickly our electricity prices increase), but it is easier to install when a building is under construction, rather than as a retro-fit (in an existing building). Included in this, is building automation. Although relatively costly, a fully automated building is able to run very efficiently, by turning lights, heating, cooling on and off when specific areas are occupied or when temperatures do not meet the required levels. Further to this, technology such as “energy recovery systems”, “thermal storage” and “geothermal heat pumps” are continuing to improve to offer efficient alternatives to heating and cooling for all building types and sizes.

This post: Where to Start? – Energy! Will be continued in part two, where we look at buildings becoming self sufficient through the production of renewable energy.