Tips to help you lower your office electricity bill3

I am certain that almost everyone is aware we are living in rather tough economic times. I said almost because of the boda boda man the other day who answered his calls via a Bluetooth headset as we weaved through traffic. He probably had an iPhone in his pocket!

It has become increasingly important for businesses to find ways to reduce overall costs. In a country where over 80% of businesses registered do not make it to their 1st Birthday, and only a fraction of the other 20% surviving the next year, this time is particularly tough for small businesses, though even big and well established companies are also feeling the pinch.

This afternoon, the electricity bill for our office reached my desk. It had been a few months since we got one, and we have since acquired more workstations and gadgets so I held my breath as I looked at the “Total Amount Due” section. I thought I should find out how to cut cost on power for IT equipment, and subsequently share with you since all businesses spend on energy for their equipment.

First of all, it’s important that other people in the company say the IT Manager, see the bill. It should not go straight to the finance department to dispatch your hard earned shillings before the person who selects and maintains the equipment sees it. Depending on the size and structure of the company, and the amount on the bill, you could even show it to other staff so that the next time they are about to leave the computer running through the night, they know at the back of their minds that Umeme is watching.

Turning off machines that are not in use is probably the most obvious power saving technique. Ensure that people turn off their computers when they finish the day’s work, and even during lunch time or meetings, power can be saved by putting the computers in sleep mode. It may not be easy ensuring that this happens, especially when the office isn’t as small as mine where I can walk around all the offices to check, so you have to put in effort to educate the users on why they need to power down, and how to do that. Then you will have to remind them again and again, through memos, screensavers or simply shouting it across the office!

However, sometimes you may need to take matters into your own hands.

I once worked for a newspaper where one of the drivers would walk into the newsroom and turn on the TV, watch a few minutes of a ki-Nigeria and then walk out. Then I would turn it off, then he would come back and turn it on again, and sometimes he’d walk out after 30 seconds! Then I would turn it off again since no one was watching most of the time. He thought I had a problem with him.

Then the other day, one of our account executives left a note on his computer that read “do not shut down” at about 4pm, then did not come back till next morning. I wonder whether he was running some important system upgrades, or had documents open, or just wanted to continue his Facebook session quickly when he returned to office…

Using power management software, you can take control the equipment and turn them off at a certain time. For example, you can set them to power down 1 hour after official closing time, giving a late worker a prompt to postpone the scheduled shut down if he is still using it. There are different power management software solutions that you can use, depending on the size of your network, but they all work towards saving you power, and monitoring to show you what savings you have made. They usually cost less than an average antivirus license, while there are some free ones too.

Additionally, you can save power even when the PC is running using power saving options. For example Windows has inbuilt power management capability which gets better with every Windows iteration, and many laptops come with extra software from the manufacturer.

Now while I mentioned using screensavers to pass on the message about saving power, screensavers themselves do not save power. They save the screen, but in some instances may consume more power than when the user is actively using the computer. Some screensavers demand quite some processing power from the computer. So instead of setting up PCs to run the screen saver, set them to “sleep” if left idle for a certain time.

Buying power efficient machines will also go a long way towards cutting electricity costs. When purchasing equipment, look out for energy efficiency rating, and go for those with a minimum 85%. While at it, also buy energy saving bulbs, and make sure you are buying genuine ones. I usually buy Philips bulbs. There are many brands that are cheaper, but they will not last as long as the “expensive” ones, and will not save you so much power.

For computers, buy LCD screens to replace whatever CRT monitors you may have in the office. You could also consider buying laptops instead of desktops as they consume much less energy than desktops.

Talking of monitors, turning down the brightness of the monitor will also cut the consumption slightly. It may not be so much, but it is something. As an illustration of the impact of screen brightness on power consumption, run your laptop on battery with full brightness, then later with the lowest setting to see the difference in battery life.

Get into the habit of completely turning off equipment such as printers when not in use. If you print once or twice a day, turning it off will save you more energy than leaving it on standby. The same applies to other equipment that spends most of its time waiting to be needed.

Finally, the most effective way to lower you electricity bill is to stop using the machines altogether! (Ok, just kidding!)
Do you have other ideas of how businesses can lower their electricity bill? Please share by commenting below.