Building an Energy Management Strategy That Works
When you’re creating a plan for your building or facility, energy management is one of the most crucial elements. It’s important for you to keep energy low for cost-effectiveness and to adhere to the many requirements put in place by the government. The only way you’ll be able to successfully minimize energy costs and make sure that you stick to these standards is by developing a sound strategy.
Keep reading to find out how to build an energy management strategy that works.
The International Facility Management Association has developed a sound strategy that facility managers should adhere to when developing their own energy management plan. This strategy involves five key phases: planning, installation, operation, optimization, and renewal.
Consider Your Options
When you begin to develop your plan, consider the options that you have so you can create the best plan possible. To do so, gather a committee of facility operators and employees that each contributes to the plan with new perspectives and ideas that fit the organization’s objectives.
Make sure to schedule consistent brainstorming meetings where each person gets to express their own ideas, then continue to create different parts of the plan until you have a solid strategy in place.
Determine Installation and Suppliers
Once you’ve created your plan, the facility managers and other executives will want to negotiate terms with suppliers in order to be the most cost-effective and get the most for their investment. Energy prices are constantly fluctuating, and the cost of energy can drastically impact the facility’s profits based on this step of the planning process.
Energy Operations and Maintenance
As a facility operates and maintains energy management systems while controlling costs, the facility managers must be able to accurately measure their energy and resource consumption. This allows them to stay on track and determine if they’re meeting their goals or to understand where they’re going outside the plan.
In some cases, facility managers look into energy consumption devices to allow them to better determine where energy can be reduced.
Optimization
In the same way that it’s important to measure the amount of energy that’s consumed, it’s also crucial for facility managers to execute targeted efficiency projects with demonstrable ROI in order for the energy management strategy to be effective. By optimizing energy and resource consumption, organizations help to reduce costs, improve processes, and meet sustainability goals.
Renewing the Strategy
Facility managers must analyze the performance of their strategy and determine if it’s working with reporting capabilities. The key to an energy management strategy is being able to report progress, so an analysis of the performance and determining whether goals have been met is crucial to the process.
If goals aren’t reached and progress isn’t made, it’s up to the facility managers to determine what isn’t working and where the strategy can be improved.
Keep these tips in mind when developing your energy management strategy. If you need durable, sustainable products for your new facility, click here to find out where to buy Scranton Products.