Most buildings can become more energy efficient without a major retrofit – they just need to be maintained and fine-tuned. There are a number of ways that building owners and tenants can significantly reduce a building’s energy consumption.
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Every building is different and some of these items may not be applicable to every project. You should seek advice from a qualified building practitioner before making any system changes.
What can I do right now?
- Track your building’s energy consumption by putting bill data into a spreadsheet. You'll be able to see the effectiveness of energy efficiency measures.
- Let your service providers know that you're trying to improve the building's energy efficiency. They may have suggestions for improvements or change their practices to improve efficiency. You could offer incentives or penalties based on the way they affect energy consumption in the building.
- Review the building management systems for anomalies. For example, are there times when boilers and chillers simultaneously provide heating and cooling? Additional monitoring equipment or smart meters may be required for a full analysis.
- Check the building's systems to see if they are still working they way they were designed to. Consider a full retro-commissioning of the building’s systems to find and fix inefficiencies.
- Consider painting the roof white to off-set the heat-island effect.
- Raise or lower air conditioning set points for different seasons. Setting the air conditioning to 24°C in summer and 21°C in winter can result in significant energy savings as the system won’t have to work as hard.
- Review the air conditioning requirements of the server and communications rooms. Many are maintained at 20°C around the clock when they may not need to be – check with your building’s facility manager, IT staff or equipment suppliers to see if higher temperatures are viable.
- Check plant running schedules to ensure systems aren't running longer than they need to. Does air conditioning need to start at 6am or can it start later? Is it running on weekends or holidays when the building isn’t occupied?
- Replace items with higher-efficiency models instead of like-for-like when they burn out.
- Replace standard incandescent light globes with compact fluorescent bulbs.
- Turn off lights at night and consider installing timers or other automated systems to do this.
- Turn computers off at night.
- Include green measures in tenancy fitout procedures so that new tenants consider energy efficiency when they move into the building.
- Include tenants in energy efficiency upgrades and keep them informed of changes and performance. Let them know the building’s NABERS ratings – research suggests this can inspire them to reduce their energy and water consumption.
- Train the building managers and tenants in energy efficient building operations. Changes are often ineffective if the building users don’t know how to operate or maintain them.
- Consider partially in-sourcing building management to allow for closer monitoring and greater input.
More information
MoreInformation