Make the most of your holiday break, and don’t come back to a big electricity bill! During the holiday season a lot of businesses will close their doors for a few days, or at least operate with a smaller staff, which means you may want to consider how you can conserve energy while people are away from the office.
It’s important to remember to power down before you leave the office for an extended period over the holiday season, as reductions in energy use can have a big impact on your costs.
Costs can already skyrocket during this time, with office parties and special events, and for business owners it’s always worth saving on costs where you can. Turn off, so you can relax and enjoy your holidays, without having to worry about getting a big energy bill.
Don’t leave your lights on
If you have less people in the office, you’re unlikely to need the same amount of lighting on.
Turn off lights in any areas that are not being used. Common areas such as bathrooms, kitchens and meeting rooms often sit empty for long periods of time, so remember to turn off the lights in these spaces when they’re empty.
Use timers to set your lights to turn off at a certain time each day, or invest in sensors so that the lights turn off when a room has been empty for an extended period.
Don’t forget exterior lights if you have the ability to control them, as well as any festive lights you have up. If you have exterior lights or festive lights that will be kept on over the holidays, consider using LED bulbs where possible, as these are more energy efficient than regular bulbs.
Limit use of air conditioning
An office space can get quite warm during summer, but there’s no point cooling your whole office building if no one is in there.
As with the lighting, section areas off and only cool the spaces where there are people. And if you only have very few people in the office during this time, encourage them to dress comfortably and utilise fans to avoid needing the air conditioning on at all.
A programmable thermostat gives you greater control over the temperature in your workplace. You can adjust the times of use, and turn your cooling system on and off at specific times of the day with a pre-set schedule. This also helps you avoid the cooling being left on overnight, or days when no one is in the office.
Closing curtains and blinds can help keep the office cool, and minimise the need for air conditioning. This can also be good for security reasons if your office will sit empty for a period of time.
Power down your computers and office equipment
Don’t leave any computers or printing equipment on standby if employees have left the office for the holidays.
Turn off equipment such as computers, printers, copiers and scanners if they will not be in use for an extended period of time. Computers can use more energy than you may think, even if left on standby, so turn off power at the wall. Also, don’t forget small devices like chargers and desk lamps and kitchen appliances like toasters and kettles that can often get left on.
By making sure to turn off computers and other office equipment where you can during the holiday period, it can help your business save on energy costs.
Remind your team to switch off
You can’t do it all yourself, so it can help to get your team involved with shutting down the office for the holiday season.
Send out reminders to employees to turn off all their equipment before they pack up for the holidays. You could also designate some people to do a last walk around to make sure everything that can be turned off, is turned off, before you lock up for the holiday season.
If you’re looking for more ways to reduce your business energy costs, check out our blog on how to save on energy costs in the office.