Running your business comes with several operating costs that include rent and energy bills. You can begin to determine what type of monthly budget will be required for energy supply by having a good understanding of the daily operating requirements for your business. Remember that Utility Bidder can help you determine the energy that your business requires. But this can depend on the business type you run, the number of employees, the size of your space, and the equipment you use to operate the business.
It makes sense to begin thinking about your company’s electricity needs even before you get a new space to move in. When you figure out your energy consumption, you can prepare well for the energy costs so that you can set up the budget. This page discusses the energy your business needs to run properly.
ENERGY FOR YOUR PEOPLE
The logical place to begin establishing the electricity needs of your business is to know how many employees you have working in your business premises. This applies to the first day of operations and during any future growth of the business.
Each employee in your team has an average energy usage related to them. Usage of the bathroom, kitchen, and having the equipment, such as computers can increase the energy consumption. This is the reason many business owners place a certain amount for each employee when it comes to their overheads, including their use of energy as well as other operating costs. The best way you can calculate overheads is by having the total cost of energy and divide it up among the number of employees.
The truth is that it can be hard to estimate the exact amount of energy that your employees can utilize before every person is working. You can easily estimate your equipment energy needs, but it can be hard to determine employees’ energy usage behavior of this equipment or even other external factors, such as cold weather that needs more heating energy.
By now you may be wondering where most of the energy usage in a business occurs. This usually depends on the type of business you run. If you are an office that needs employees to work with computers during the day, then you can use most of the energy in the office. Besides the cost of purchasing and maintaining laptops, desktops, and appliances, there is also the running cost associated with this equipment.
Most modern computers are reasonably energy-efficient, but the combined consumption of the energy can add up. Therefore, you need to estimate by writing down all the computers, mobile phones, and tablets and work out their wattage. Then you can find out their daily running time to get an energy usage estimate.
If you have a retail business, your costs can be different to traditional office environments. In this case, you may have one or two computers to operate, though there can be other energy needs for things such as extra lighting and product displays throughout the store.
AREAS THAT REQUIRE MORE ENERGY USAGE
An office environment relies on the meeting areas to host clients and internal teams. These spaces usually need a large display when there are presentations, such as a projector and television. Therefore, it’s also a good idea to include the wiring and installation of the equipment right from the onset. A projector can be useful for large screen presentations, but it uses a significant amount of energy when used for long periods. It can also need service after a specific period.
Every person in your company needs to turn off the equipment after completing their meetings. This applies for all technology, lights, and heating. When you decide to plan out your meeting room, remember that you can have a situation requiring several employees to work and charge their computers simultaneously.
One of the best ways you can prepare a workplace for your energy needs is to place and arrange power outlets. If the floor plan doesn’t function with the current positions of outlets, then you can contact an experienced electrician to add more outlets.
It’s common for an open plan office to have a couple of desks that are placed in the middle of the area. Therefore, this means that they can be away from the standard wall outlets. In such cases, your electrician can wire up from the ground below a path of anti-trip cable covers or even drop the wires down from your ceiling in tubes that can keep your space safe and tidy.
There is a chance that you may require direct USB chargers in these power outlets. You should remember that the cable standards can change in the long run, so this can be convenient for a specific period before connectors change.
You also need to consider the heating, cooling, and ventilation of your business premises. Your business energy usage can be affected significantly depending on the amount of cooling and heating required. Like residential places, business energy bills can often increase during the winter season thanks to the prolonged heating that leads to the general demand for energy to rise. On the other hand, in the summertime, there can also be some energy costs related to cooling, though they are not usually significant.
Aside from these, the building premises you have may have shared ventilation with all other tenants through vents that you can find in the walls or roof. Quite often, the cost of these building facilities can be shared between tenants, though it’s a good idea to check your terms of the lease so that you can understand what your responsibilities are.
However, if the building doesn’t feature a built-in heating system, you should try to get a discrete system for your business. This is quite common for smaller business premises. You need to figure out how to cool and heat the workspace efficiently. Therefore, you need to research to find the right heat pump brands. Once you find the right brand, you can contact the installation technician to place the unit so that it can have the maximum coverage of the area.
