Up Time Magazine - February/March 2009 - (Page 11) 50 large commercial and industrial facilities that yielded an average payback of 2.3 years. So, Energy Conservation does pay. What I have found, however, is that even with favorable economics, management can still be quite hesitant to make any investment in energy conservation. Of the 50+ facilities that received free energy assessments from Duke Energy, few customers responded by actually investing in the recommendations. Why is this? Most likely, because there was a major “disconnect” between upper management and the grassroots efforts to make improvements by the facility management level. For example, as part of the Duke Energy Program in 2007, we recommended a very attractive improvement measure to a large health care facility in North Carolina. It involved installing a deduct water meter on the make-up water to their 6,000+ ton cooling tower system to reduce the sewer charges that were being paid on the water that evaporated from the towers. Following up a year later, I discovered that ownership had still not made the improvement, even though all of the measures were submitted in the 2008 budget. This particular measure had a savings payback in terms of days or weeks, saving nearly $100,000 in energy costs annually, but it still escaped the attention of the “C” level folks. Wow. Unfortunately, we see this lack of response all too often. While excuses can be made that ‘C’ level executives face internal competition for their time, capital and attention, in this particular facility, there was no high level buy-in to improve efficiency by reducing energy use from day one. If, however, the information concerning the water deduct meter had been presented to the “right someone” with responsibility to pay the bills, our recommendation would surely have been quickly approved. With a good high level commitment for a sound Energy Plan, real savings can be achieved on a sustainable basis. Unlike other investments a business or manufacturer may make, energy savings translates to a direct and immediate increase to the “bottom line” of the business, without any strings attached. Many general business investments like R&D, new production lines, improved equipment and marketing and sales depend on many things going right to deliver the expected ROI. While many investments in Reliability pay off in the future due to better reliability and uptime, energy savings can be realized as soon as the improvements are implemented. And, over time, a program becomes truly sustainable by continuing to yield a continuous flow of reduced energy expenses. With energy costs for large buildings continuing to rise, an effective energy management program will net even greater savings in the months and years ahead. Here are a few examples of some energy savings recommendations our company has made to customers as a result of hundreds of large building energy audits: Plant Lighting Upgrades In the last few years, there have been significant improvements in lighting technology. Even though plant lighting may not be a large portion of the electric bill in some industries, a www.uptimemagazine.com http://www.ie-inc.com http://www.uptimemagazine.com
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