1. Change your light bulbs to LEDs.
2. If possible, wash your clothes in cold water.
3. Sealing cracks, gaps, leaks, and adding insulation can save up to 10% on home heating and cooling costs.
4. Clean or replace all filters in your home regularly. Dirty filters make your system work harder and run longer than necessary.
5. Use your microwave instead of your stove when cooking.
6. To ensure your appliances are running efficiently, defrost your refrigerator and freezer before ice buildup becomes 1/4-inch thick.
7. During warmer months, close blinds, shades and drapes on the sunny side of your home to help keep your home’s temperature cooler and reduce the work for you AC. Open shades during cooler months to let the sun warm your home.
8. Don’t peek in the oven while baking! Every time you peek, the temperature can drop 25 F, making your oven use more energy to bring the temperature back up.
9. Use natural light when possible.
10. Control your fixtures with a photocell or a timer to assure dusk-to-dawn only operation of your outdoor lights.
11. Don’t leave your computer on all day long. Only turn on your computer, monitor, printer and fax machine when you need them.
12. Set your thermostat to 78F in the summer and 68F in the winter – every degree of extra heating or cooling will increase energy usage 6% to 8%. Setting your thermostat to a lower temperature than normal will not cool your home faster.
13. Using your ceiling fan will allow you to raise the thermostat setting about 4°F with no reduction in comfort.
14. Refrigerators and freezers actually operate most efficiently when full, so keep your refrigerator and freezer as full as possible (using water bottles if nothing else). Be careful about overfilling them as this will reduce airflow and cause the appliance to work harder.
15. Using dishwashers and clothes washers/dryers at night will keep the house cooler, reduce strain on the power grid during the peak usage hours of 4 PM and 6 PM and reduce the chance of an emergency!
16. Turn off heated dry on your dishwasher and air dry instead.
17. Set your refrigerator temperature to the manufacturer’s recommendation to avoid excessive cooling and wasting energy.
18. Don’t leave bathroom or kitchen ventilation fans running longer than necessary. They replace inside air with outside.
19. If your home has single-pane windows, consider replacing them with more energy efficient windows, or adding solar shades or tinting film.
20. Adjust the thermostat only to the desired temperature. Your home won’t heat or cool faster by cranking it up.
21. Install a programmable thermostat that will automatically adjust the temperature according to your schedule.
22. Turn off the lights when they’re not in use. Lighting accounts for about 12% of a typical residential utility bill.
23. Don’t leave your mobile phone plugged in overnight. It only takes a couple of hours to charge.
24. Turn off the oven a few minutes before cooking time runs out. Your food will continue to cook without using the extra electricity.
25. Avoid placing appliances that give off heat, such as lamps or TVs, near a thermostat.
Energy Efficiency Tips for Commercial Customers
If yours is like most businesses, there are many opportunities for energy-saving improvements that can translate directly to financial savings and environmental diligence. The following are some general and specific actions you can take to (i) optimize your use of energy, (ii) save money and
(iii) improve your bottom line.
General Tips
• Turn off equipment that will be idle for long periods of time.
• Maintain equipment regularly for efficient performance.
• Repair leaks in boiler systems. Steam is used in many industrial processes and is often a source of large amounts of wasted energy and money due to leaks. Industrial facilities can reduce steam energy consumption by as much as 20% through simple maintenance and corrective measures in their steam systems.
• Install Energy Management Systems (EMS). These are devices that range from simple on/off time clocks controlling a single system to sophisticated computerized systems that monitor energy consuming areas or systems and provide control dependent on prevailing conditions.
Lighting
• Replace incandescent lighting with high efficient fluorescent or LED lighting. An 18-watt compact fluorescent, for instance, puts out as much light as a 60-watt incandescent. Also, good quality fluorescent lamps last almost thirteen times longer than incandescent lamps, which means even more savings can be achieved in replacement costs.
• Increase the output of your lights by regularly removing grease, dust and other dirt from bulbs, fixtures, lenses, lamps and reflective surfaces.
• Use natural lighting wherever possible.
• Install occupancy sensors in offices and other low traffic areas that will keep lighting off when not needed.
Motors
• Turn off motors, when not in use.
• Use timer controls to operate equipment (such as irrigation and pool pumps) at set scheduled times.
• When replacing or purchasing new electric motors invest in systems with higher energy efficiency ratings.
• Match motor size to the horsepower requirements of the task. This guarantees that the motors will operate between 75-100% of full load where they usually are most efficient.
• Improve low Power Factor (PF) by installing capacitors. Inductive loads, which are predominantly electric motors, are the major contributors to low PF. Low PF increases the demand charge on your electricity bill. A PF of 0.85 or higher is considered good.
• Use adjustable speed drives in situations where you may not need full power from the motor at all times. Variable speed drive motors allow the matching of the input power of the motor to the load requirement.
• Establish and keep up with maintenance schedules on electrical and electro-mechanical systems. This should include performing regular cleaning and maintenance on your motors, tightening belts and pulleys to prevent slippage, lubricating motors and drives regularly to reduce friction, and replacing worn bearings.
Office Equipment
• Turn off computers, printers and other office equipment when you are not using them especially overnight and on weekends.
• Use the energy saving or sleep mode on computer monitors to save energy.
• Choose the smallest computer monitor that meets your needs. Larger monitors require more power.
• Consider having employees use lap top computers, since they use up to 90% less electricity than standard desktop computers.
• Use ink jet printers for very low volume printing. They use just 4% of the electricity used by typical laser models.
• Use a multi-function printer/scan/fax machine, as it will use much less power than the three separate machines combined.
Air Conditioners
• Size or select air conditioners based on the size of the area to be cooled and schedule of operation of the area(s).
• When purchasing new air conditioning units, request the more efficient model or those with high energy efficiency ratio (EER) i.e. 10 or higher.
• Set air conditioner thermostats to moderate levels e.g. 200 C to allow efficient operation rather
than the lowest setting e.g. 160C.
• Use occupancy sensors to control AC units in areas where they may be inadvertently left on.
• Use central air conditioners as they are typically more efficient than comparable split units. Note however that they tend to be “operated” inefficiently by being poorly maintained or used to cool unnecessary areas.
• Keep your filters clean and maintain air conditioning units in accordance with the manufacturer’s recommendations.
• Ensure air-conditioned areas are properly enclosed to minimize hot air infiltration via doors and windows, or heat gain via poorly insulated roofs and walls.
• Add or repair insulation to ducting, roofing, and other building envelope components to reduce cooling requirements.
