Simple ways to slash your power bills
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• Implement a programme to eliminate wasteful energy use in the office, workshop, warehouse and yard, and you could slash your power bill by at least 20%, says Glenn Brookes, director of the Energy Systems Trade Association (Tel: 01453 886776).
Brookes calculates that energy expenditure accounts for 2-5% of a haulier's operating costs. With current pinched profit margins, any measures that will cut your outgoing by one-fifth or more must be worth considering. Many of the steps that can be taken are obvious, agrees Brookes, but are invariably ignored. They include: • Ensuring that lights aren't left on all day in circumstances where there's ample natural light; • Making sure that all lights not required for security purposes are switched off at night and when everybody goes for lunch. The same applies to any office and workshop equipment which doesn't have to be left on; • Checking the central heating boiler controls to ensure that the system doesn't fire up too early or shut down too late. Remember that an old, badly-maintained and inefficient boiler will waste energy; • Seeing that your staff aren't sneaking in their own heaters when it isn't really necessary. A single-bar domestic electric fire left burning all day under somebody's desk will soon bump up your quarterly bill; • Investing in lowenergy Admittedly, lowenergy bulbs cost £8£10 each, but they'll pay for themselves in 12 months thanks to negligible electricity consumption and a long life; • Considering the merits of localised heating systems (especially in workshops) such as radiant heat. They allow you to avoid having to heat an entire workshop when just two people are working in one bay (see CM Workshop, Dec); • Cleaning the dust off the lights in the workshop more regularly, and fitting reflectors behind them. Those two measures may allow you to switch off, say; one light in three and still have plenty of illumination; • Lagging the roof—more effective than installing double glazing; • Fitting flow restrictors to all the hot water taps (and the cold water ones too—water is a valuable resource).
At present, major consumers of gas and electricity can ask suppliers to bid for their business and select the lowest tender, says Brookes. After 1998 anybody will be able to do this.
This could result in another 20% reduction in bills for canny energy buyers, but Brookes warns that weighing the merits of competing tariffs may be difficult.