There is just no way for small businesses to avoid overhead costs completely. But there are ways companies can lower these costs, especially energy costs. The question is, how much energy do small businesses use on average? Knowing this can tell you what you can expect.
Calculating Energy Costs
Knowing how much energy do small businesses use on average can help you understand where your business should fall. Business owners should know a few equations to figure out how much energy they use. An electric bill should give you all of the information you need, but you can go even further and figure out how much each device is costing you per month to power.
The first equation will get you the Watt-hours per day. Simply take the device’s wattage and multiply that by how many hours you have the device powered on er day. That equation gives you the Watt-hours per day. But most power companies use kilowatts on your bill, so we need to convert those Watt-hours into kilowatts.
You just need to divide the device usage by 1000 to get kilowatts. Then, divide that number by 30 to get your daily kilowatt-hours. You know how much energy you use per month based on your own numbers. You can use this information later as well.
How Much Energy do Small Businesses Use?
Did you know that small businesses spend a combined $60 Billion on energy costs alone per year? The numbers are difficult to average because there are a lot of factors that go into the charges. However, we can go based on averages and statistics.
Most small businesses have up to 100,000 square feet. That means most small and mid-size businesses need to power up at most 100,000 square feet of space to operate efficiently. Small businesses with less than 100,000 square feet use 15 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year.
That is 62.5 watts of power per day if a business operates on an 8-hour schedule with everything turned off at the 8-hour mark.
Small Business Energy Usage
Three things use up the most energy in a small business; lighting, heating, and air conditioning. However, other things could be added to the list. Computers take up a good amount of energy as well, security lights, cooking equipment if applicable, mini-fridges, copy machines, and even exit signs.
Not every business has all of these things, and not every business runs them the same amount of time. But you can calculate your usage based on each device using the equations above. That could help you discover if an appliance needs to be switched out for a more energy-efficient version or scrapped altogether.
The goal is always to reduce overhead; that’s the point of asking how much energy do small businesses use? To find out how you can save money or if you’re using an average amount, and if any changes can be made to lower those costs without impeding production.
Quick Ways to Start Saving
The first step is to figure out your usage and where it falls compared to other businesses around your size. You can then figure out which areas you can improve upon. Lighting is an easy fix; switching to LED lighting will help lower those costs dramatically.
You can also improve insulation not to need as much heat and A/C as often. Otherwise, buying and using only energy-efficient devices will make a big difference as well. You can even switch from computers to laptops to help lower the costs of energy usage in your building.
Consider adding power strips throughout the space as well so that devices that drain energy when not in use can be completely shut off. Those things will include printers, monitors, computers, and copy machines. These efforts will help lower the overhead costs of running your business and increase profits.