Cutting energy waste saves money and reduces emissions – so what barriers hinder sustainability leaders, facility managers, and energy champions from implementing these initiatives? When energy efficiency projects are evaluated ad-hoc, energy feels like one more flavor-of-the-month initiative that gets lost in the shuffle. Thus, energy efficiency projects can be disconnected from the business’s core strategies with sustainability initiatives prioritizing costly supply-side investments, like on-site solar and energy storage, or purchasing clean energy through power purchase agreements. In contrast, a more holistic approach to energy management (EM) creates alignment and accountability to achieve impactful energy reduction targets.
While there is no one-size-fits-all approach, there are common strategies for fostering effective EM programs:
Are you ready to build an effective EM program and lay the foundation to meet these outcomes? There are eight key steps you can take to level up your EM, relentlessly cut energy waste, save money, and reduce your emissions.
To kickstart an effective EM program, the first pivotal step is to pinpoint energy-saving projects. Identifying and completing a handful of quick-win projects and then communicating the cost and emissions impact will help strengthen your team’s motivation.
One Gazebo user – a metal extrusion company – led a treasure hunt that identified easily achievable operations and maintenance savings across a variety of subsystems- air leaks, idling equipment, settings adjustments, and more. Employees were excited to exercise their institutional knowledge in collaboration with external consultants to uncover projects including 30 to 40 air leaks saving $10,000 with no investment cost.
Once you have identified promising energy-savings opportunities, it is now time to prioritize and start completing projects.
Once the metal extrusion company implemented and tracked their first year of priority projects, Gazebo enabled them to validate and report a 5% reduction in energy use. As these projects were completed, the energy savings equated to more than $70,000 in energy bill savings that they could reinvest into the business.
As you start completing projects, it’s vital to measure the variables that will affect their impact, so you can understand your successes and make informed adjustments.
A potato-processing plant used Gazebo to track real-time energy data and measure production patterns and peak energy consumption periods, leading to targeted strategies that reduced energy use by over 600,000 kWh.
Once you’re accurately tracking your progress, we’ve found a three-pronged process is most effective – and necessary – to make those savings stick.
A food manufacturer with multiple facilities implemented a “Backslider Support” initiative. If a facility’s energy savings starts to decline, the energy team evaluates any recent changes made at the facility and creates a plan of action to help them regain their savings momentum.
Part of making savings stick is helping staff understand how their daily work aligns with high-level decarbonization targets. Developing a plan that connects those dots is critical for relentless decarbonization progress.
The energy team at an aluminum mill developed a comprehensive plan to maintain their first year, low- and no-cost savings. Building on early successes, they integrated energy-saving behaviors into daily operations using similar methods as a safety or quality control plan. They discovered ways to engage more employees to bolster their successes. With broader involvement across the company, they estimated another $130,000 in cost reductions through energy efficiency.
Securing financial and personnel resources is vital for the success of any EM program. Without consistent resources, EM programs can languish.
A bakery cooked up big savings over a four-year period by implementing 44 large and small energy saving projects. The completed projects earned the bakery $120,000 in annual energy cost savings, a $25,00 incentive payment, and a $20,000 grant from the California Food Production Investment Program. By starting with energy efficiency, the company secured financial resources and boosted staff momentum for capital projects, influencing them to replace their existing gas boiler with a more energy efficient, modern boiler that uses less water.
Bringing in external consultants to bolster your internal capacity is a great way to get your EM plan off the ground, but building and training internal EM teams is imperative for driving lasting decarbonization progress.
By establishing a cross-functional energy team that meets monthly, a produce distribution warehouse completed 39 projects and tracked their progress and savings in Gazebo. Within two years (and 39 projects later!), the energy team saved more than one million dollars and 8 million kWh – the equivalent of removing 1,200 passenger vehicles off the road for one year.
Lastly, all this effort means nothing if you’re not tracking it. Capturing and reporting energy performance is critical for garnering support from the boiler room to the boardroom, ensuring sustained effort and funding for EM programs.
A car-crushing company leveraged Gazebo’s performance tracking to identify high energy consumption during peak demand times. Gazebo allowed operators to visualize the financial impact of operating during peak demand times and make the decision to shift their peak process time to earlier in the day. By shifting its energy use to off-peak timeframes, the company was able to save over $1,000 a day on its electricity bill.
How is success measured?
To ensure sustained success in your EM program, establish clear processes, including regular performance reporting to leadership, defined roles and responsibilities within your energy teams, structured onboarding and training for new staff, consistent project tracking and review cycles, and active cross-functional collaboration. These foundational practices create accountability, maintain momentum, and embed EM into your organizational culture. While these foundational practices set the stage for success, measuring the impact of your EM program requires tracking clear, quantifiable metrics. Here are key metrics you can use to measure your success:
Successful organizations use this eight-step process to implement impactful EM programs. These organizations get results by setting ambitious targets, aligning stakeholders, and fostering a culture of energy accountability. Additionally, with help from powerful platforms like Gazebo, EM programs are no longer another flavor-of-the-month initiative.
Gazebo provides a clear pathway for organizations to level up their EM program. With centralized data and early warnings for backsliding, Gazebo empowers site-, region- and organization-level accountability to ensure energy optimization has a lasting impact. Gazebo’s visualizations showcase successes and make it easy for leaders to translate corporate goals into site-level objectives. Only Gazebo helps organizations understand what they can do, should do, and must do for effective energy management and decarbonization, and then shows how to get it done at scale.
Ready to use Gazebo to level up your EM program? Reach out to one of our team members to schedule a demo.
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