Inside Small Business: Five tips to help cut your SME’s energy bills
The rising cost of electricity, and hence energy bills, is shrinking profits for Australian SMEs. While challenging to combat, it’s not impossible.
Like any resource, the first step to energy efficiency (and lower bills), is understanding how energy is being used. Which devices, fixtures, or appliances are using most of the power? When is the energy being used? What is the energy being used for? Answering these questions gives SME owners line-of-sight into where their energy usage is being wasted.
For example, Jasper Coffee measured how much energy each of its coffee roasters consumes in real-time. By monitoring the consumption pattern, Jasper Coffee was able to better organise its roasting cycle so that energy wasn’t being used on tasks such as unnecessarily warming up between batches. Monitoring energy use also revealed that certain high-load equipment was being left on overnight and on weekends when the cafe was closed.