How to Reduce Energy Consumption in the Office (Guest blog by Arloid)

At Arloid, our AI is helping businesses achieve up to 30% reductions in utility costs with zero capital investment. In this guide, our energy saving experts provide some more easy ways your office can take control of its consumption.

With energy prices soaring, reducing consumption in the office is high on the business agenda. Not sure where to begin? Don’t worry, there are a range of measures you can look to implement depending on the amount you want to invest, and the level of savings you want to generate.

Light Smart

If you haven’t already, it’s worth upgrading to energy efficient LED lighting. These convert the majority of the energy they consume into light, rather than heat. You should also think through whether the entire space needs to be illuminated – particularly if it’s a large office. Corridors, kitchens, and less frequently occupied spaces could have the lights turned off when not in use. If the office is open plan, using focused lighting instead of lighting the whole space evenly is likely to be more energy efficient. Workstations, of course, need to be brightly lit, but foyers, corridors, and common areas could have dimmed lighting that brightens when motion is detected.

Improve Insulation

Many businesses see their energy spend inflated due to a lack of adequate insulation. Taking the time to upgrade yours could therefore generate tangible savings. Install insulation in the roof space and in any cavity walls, and invest in double glazing if you haven’t already. This will require a little financial outlay, but better building efficiency will pay for itself in no time at all.

It’s also a good idea to use draught excluders around doors and plug any gaps around windows to prevent cold air from getting in. Finally, put up curtains and blinds at all windows. This will help insulate the building during the cold winter months, and can be used to prevent heat gain in the summer through shielding the office from sunlight.

Top 5 Energy Saving Tips for Your Building >

Print Less

Going paperless is a great way to save energy, reduce office spend, and cut down on CO² emissions. There are numerous online collaboration tools available to help employees work on documents together without having to print anything out. You can also share documents virtually before meetings as opposed to preparing handouts, and even sign documents without having to print a thing. For any printing you can’t avoid, make sure your printer is set to double sided, and you recycle paper after use.

Maintain HVAC

Most offices rely heavily on their heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system, but not maintaining this properly can lead to costly inefficiencies. Regular servicing and proactive maintenance will also boost the performance of the system as a whole, and avoid the possible disruption issues with HVAC can cause. It’s also worth regularly cleaning the entire system including the air ducts and filters. A dirty filter not only leads to inefficient performance, but it will also reduce the quality of the air in the office. For high-use months in the peak of the winter and summer, adequate cleaning is critical for creating a pleasant environment to work in.

Go Virtual

We’re living in the age of digital, but many offices are still clinging on to old fashioned ways of doing things. Most meetings don’t need to be held in person these days, and switching for virtual catch ups means saving energy on travel as well as that required to operate a room.

Offering your employees more flexible, hybrid working arrangements also has the added benefit of reducing the occupancy of your office at any one time. That means less energy will be required to heat and cool the office, and you take away some of the energy spend brought about by individual appliances. The physical office is unlikely to ever go away completely, but making use of the virtual workspace can equal substantial savings.

Organise Tea & Coffee

It might sound simple, but changing the way you do tea and coffee in the office can have a real impact on energy consumption. Instead of boiling the kettle multiple times for multiple hot drinks, why not start a rota system where employees take turns to make drinks for everyone who wants one? It takes far less energy to boil a kettle once for a larger number of drinks, and a rota provides the opportunity for employees to socialise and help each other out during the day – boosting company cohesion.

Adopt AI

The smartest change your business can make? Optimise HVAC with cutting-edge AI technology. Whilst manual scheduling and legacy data are used by many office spaces to control HVAC, these methods don’t guarantee the same level of performance and nuanced control offered by AI.

Using Deep Reinforcement Learning, we train our innovative AI to respond to live data in real time, and proactively maintain an equilibrium of energy spend and occupant comfort. That means you get a HVAC system that performs better, but costs less. It sounds too good to be true, but really, it’s just the future of utilities optimisation.

Our Technology >

Harness Analytics

Understanding the energy performance of your office can provide vital insights into where improvements are needed. If your building management system (BMS) doesn’t currently offer this, it might be time to upgrade.

At Arloid, our AI enhanced HVAC solution provides a virtual dashboard with comprehensive analytics and baseline data to allow you to understand where and how savings are being made. You retain full control at all times, and can integrate our system with your existing BMS if desired. The result is total transparency around your energy consumption, and the ability to make strategic decisions armed with a full picture of the situation. With us, you can take control of your office’s energy consumption for good.

Reduce Office Energy Consumption with AI

If you’re ready to take control of your office’s energy consumption, Arloid can show you the way. Our pioneering solution to HVAC optimisation is transforming business energy spend across a full spectrum of sectors. Within 60 days, our clients have achieved savings of up to 30% using our technology – all with zero initial investment costs.

Ready to step into the future? Let’s get started today.

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