Why your business needs to monitor its power consumption

Power consumption is something that businesses often overlook – after all, it is something that has to happen, so there is no real need to keep track of. However, monitoring power consumption can actually have a huge range of surprising benefits ranging from reducing your business costs to improving your customers’ opinions of you as an organisation. Here are six great reasons to start monitoring your power consumption today.

  1. Business continuity

It is absolutely essential for businesses to understand their costs and financial outgoings. So being aware of how much power you are using, and how this differs from month to month (or even day to day) can be extremely valuable. Unexpectedly high energy bills can be a major problem, causing cash flow issues and even troubling business continuity.

This is something that isn’t hard to do, and can potentially help you better keep track of your outgoings. Nothing is more frustrating that facing a bill that you can’t pay simply because it has come at the wrong time.

  1. Prevent waste energy

Did you know that it is estimated that the UK wastes around 54 per cent of the energy used in supplying electricity? And there is no doubt that businesses can be major contributors to this wastage. This waste can happen in many different ways – computers and other electrical equipment might be left on all the time, or machines might be incorrectly configured.

There is no excuse for this sort of waste, as it is doing no-one any good. It is costly to the company, and it something that none of us would do at home. So, whether you are guilty of leaving machines on standby, or failing to turn off lights at the end of the day – this is nothing more than unnecessary waste.

  1. Impress your customers

It is important that you show your business off in the right light to clients, customers, and the public at large. And one of the most important ways to do this is to show off your green credentials – people like to see that the companies that they work with or buy from have a serious attitude towards the environment and climate change.

Tracking your power consumption and making changes to minimise your usage is one of the most important things that a business can do. And there is nothing wrong with showing off what you are doing as a tool for marketing, and making people see your business in a positive light.

  1. Ensure there are no faults

Without you even knowing anything about it there can be faults with your power supply, or even the power quality coming into your building. Whether you are suffering from voltage sag or even spikes in the system – this can cause you to be overusing electricity.

Of course, this wouldn’t show up in your normal monitoring, so it would be necessary to utilise a power quality analyser to check whether you are getting the correct quality of power into your system or if there is another problem.

  1. Promote sustainability

Of course, sustainability is an important aspect of any business. Firstly, you need to be sure that you are doing everything you can to be limiting your consumption of energy and other materials – but sustainability also refers to your ability to expand the business without overreaching.

The key here is understanding the realities of your power use – this shows you that if your business doubles in size, whether you will be able to handle the power requirements.

  1. Lower your costs

There is the simple fact that one of the best reasons to monitor your power consumption is because it will make things cheaper for you. We have already discussed the challenges of facing a large energy bill at the wrong time, but even if this isn’t a critical situation, it can still make it much cheaper for you overall.

If you are looking for ways that your business can make small savings and cost-effective cuts, lowering your power consumption can be a great way to do this. And of course, the best strategy to lower costs is to keep track of exactly how much you are using.

Photo credits: Coworking London

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