Green your business

Business Case

Case Study 3 - Office

We conducted a level 2 energy audit of a typical Sydney office with approx. 20 staff.
As the office was a tenancy there are some limitations as to what can be done (for example the office has no control over the buildings centralised HVAC system) however we managed to find many simple and cost effective ways to save energy, reduce greenhouse emission and save money in the process.

Summary of energy audit outcomes
The energy audit identified opportunities to:

-		reduce electricity usage by 1.5 MWh pa (11% of total electricity consumption).
-		reduce greenhouse emissions by 1.6 tonnes pa (tCO2-e).
-		save $256 a year off electricity bills.
-		achieve a payback of 5.1 years.

Greenpower

As part of our energy audit we conducted an investigation into options to purchase Accredited Greenpower to supply the store with clean, renewable energy. We estimated that supplying the site with 100% accredited greenpower would cost $720 per annum. While this represents an increase in current electricity costs by 36%, it would save 14.6 tonnes of greenhouse equivalent emissions a year (tCO2-e).

Examples of energy saving opportunities
The following examples illustrate some of the energy saving opportunities identified during the audit.

1.		Controls on office equipment
		Office equipment (including computer towers, monitors, fax machines, printers, microwaves, fridges, server etc..) represents 37% of the total electricity usage of the site. Approximately 5% of this is due to equipment being left in standby mode during periods when the office is closed and unoccupied. In addition some items of office equipment continue to bleed electricity when switched off unless they are also switched off at the power point. We estimated that installing simple controls on office equipment such as programmable digital 7 day timers and USB power boards could provide annual electricity savings of 264kWh and cost savings of $44.

2.		Replace 50W downlights with high efficiency 35W IR halogen downlights
		50W halogen downlights are widely accepted to be an inefficient form of lighting. We identified several options to replace the lamps with more energy efficient lamps including: Infra-Red Reflecting 35W halogen downlights, 13W CFL downlights and 7W LED downlights. Of these, the option to replace the 50W halogen downlights with 35W halogen downlights was determined to be the most cost effective. 35W IR halogen downlights provide the same light output at a standard 50W halogen downlights but use 30% less energy. They are a drop-in-replacement and do not require installation by an electrician. In addition to energy savings the lifespan of an IR halogen downlight is longer that that of a standard 50W halogen downlight; typically in the order of 5,000 hours. We estimated replacing the 50W halogen downlights with 35 IR halogen downlights could provide annual energy savings of 312 kWh and cost savings of $52. with a payback of 2.3 years.

3.		Upgrade T8 fluorescent tubes with T8 to T5 converters
		We identified a number of options to upgrade the existing fluorescent lighting including: installing fixed dimming (voltage reduction), replacing the fittings with high efficiency single quad phosphor fittings and reflectors and replacing the 36W T8 fluorescent tubes with 28W T5 fluorescent tube using T8 to T5 converters. Of these options we determined that installing T8 to T5 converters culd be the most cost effective, providing annual electricity savings of 969kWh and cost savings of $161.

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