Business Electricity

As business electricity rates go up across the country, businesses continue to look for ways to lower their electricity bills. Part of their solution involves making their workplace more efficient in the use of electricity. Another way involves changing business electricity suppliers or negotiating with their current local power utility companies for additional discounts on rates or more favorable payment terms.

Still other businesses looking for cheap business electricity have suddenly developed an interest in "green" energy, specifically looking for ways to utilize solar power in their manufacturing plants or office buildings to reduce the amount of money they spend on electricity each month.

What Can Businesses Do to Reduce Business Electricity Prices?

There are several things that the typical business can do to reduce their business electricity prices. And most are relatively easy to do:

Wherever you can, utilize either fluorescent lighting or some of the compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). These light bulbs will cost you a bit more than the regular bulbs you're used to buying. But CFL light bulbs last ten times or more longer than regular incandescent bulbs and use a lot less electricity.

In the summer months, don't run air conditioners at times when the staff is not regularly scheduled to be in - such as weekends, before normal work hours, and after normal work hours. And in the winter, no need to heat the office areas to staff comfort levels for times when the staff is not present.  You can utilize one of the many programmable thermostats to automatically control both heating an cooling.

Train your staff to turn off electrical equipment such as computers, printers, and so on before they leave for the day. You can post display signs around the office (e.g. "Please turn off lights when not in use") as reminders to your staff to be more energy efficient.

Make it a point to purchase energy efficient appliances. Nowadays, the government requires that many new appliances be tagged with a yellow and black "Energy Guide" label. This label will show the estimated annual energy consumption of the appliance. Over the course of a number of years, cost savings from energy efficient appliances can easily repay for their purchase.

Try joining a PPA program. A PPA or Power Purchase Agreements is a unique means of financing the upfront costs of solar panel installations. These programs are not offered everywhere, but where they are offered, they provide tremendous incentives to local businesses to try out solar. A PPA agreement works by having a third party do the installation and maintenance of solar panels on the company's building. As the solar panels generate electricity, they provide electricity for the building. If any excess is produced, it is sold to the utility company. The end result it that the company's electric bill goes down. Usually the number of panels installed are enough to reduce your monthly electric bill by at least 50% and up to 90%. Major companies have taken advantage of various PPA programs including Macy's, Whole Foods, and others.

Stand By Business Electricity Savings
Many pieces of office equipment have "stand-by" features that will shut the equipment down if it's not in use for a specified amount of time. But the stand-by feature is not always the default. Depending on the number of pieces of equipment that you have, you can potentially save hundreds of dollars a year by ensuring that the stand-by feature is enabled.

To reduce your electricity usage further, find out if your business electricity provider does energy audits. An energy audit will inspect your business to evaluate how much energy your business currently consumes as well as in what ways. At its completion, you will be provided with a report listing a series of action steps that you can take to begin to utilize your energy more efficiently and cut down your yearly expenses. Some of the suggestions will be short term and things that you can do immediately. Others will be long term suggestions and will require you to do a cost benefit analysis before being able to determine if the payback period makes sense from a business perspective.

Some electric utilities companies will provide you with an energy audit for free. Others, may charge a small amount. If your utility company does not provide such a service, it will probably be worth your while to pay a professional energy auditor to provide an audit for you. By following the suggestions of a good energy audit report, a typical business may be able to save as much as thirty percent or more on their monthly energy bills. The resulting cheaper business electricity could give you savings that pay for the price of the electricity audit many times over the next few years.