Managing your energy use

Understanding how your business currently uses energy will help you to manage it efficiently. If you measure and monitor your current usage you'll be able to identify:

• existing patterns of consumption
• opportunities to save money

You'll also be able to compare your energy consumption against that of other similar businesses.

How to measure and monitor energy use

To measure your overall energy usage accurately you'll need to record your organisation's consumption of each energy type, eg gas, electricity, oil and renewables. Decide on how consumption will be measured; larger businesses might measure energy use by different departments or during different processes.

Collect details of how much energy is used. This usually involves reading meters and submeters. Half-hourly meters and smart meters can provide very detailed information about energy use.

Bringing together all the information will help you see where practical energy and cost saving measures can be put in place.

How to carry out an energy survey

Carrying out an energy survey is a key part of measuring and monitoring your energy consumption. An energy survey is a physical site inspection to identify areas where energy savings can be made.

The survey can cover the whole site or just focus on selected areas, processes or equipment. You could carry out surveys at different times of the day or week to identify different levels of energy use.