13 Scary Facts About Energy Inefficiency

As we entered into autumn and Halloween was approaching, we thought about scary things that can affect organisations across all industries. Energy Inefficiency quickly came to mind as it needlessly raises costs and increases the environmental impact.

In this blog, we compiled 13 facts about energy inefficiency that we thought to be interesting or useful to reduce energy consumption organisations across different industries.

1. The UK loses 54% of its electric energy - worth £9.5bn which is enough to cover half of every household's annual electricity bill - before it even reaches end users.
2. Earth Overshoot day in 2019 was 29th July – by this date, humanity had used up earth’s resources that can be regenerated in this year.
3. In office buildings, desktop monitors, computers and lighting are responsible for the most energy wasted but also represent areas of great potential savings. Turning off computers and monitors when not in use, as opposed to merely putting them to sleep mode, can save on average 622 kWh per person over a year.
4. 46% of business energy is consumed outside of regular business hours, between 6pm and 8am. Implementing control solutions that automatically turn off non-essential equipment after close of business can help bring this number down.
5. Lighting accounts for over 25% of energy use in retail buildings – switching to energy saving light bulbs or implementing control solutions that turn off lights when they aren’t needed can reduce that figure.
6. Figures from Zero Waste Scotland show small and medium-sized enterprises lose around £19,000 on average each year because of energy inefficiency.
7. 85% of Energy in the US is generated using fossil fuels and nuclear energy, renewable energy only making up 15%. However, there is light on the horizon as renewable energy is growing faster than fossil fuels.
8. Refrigeration can be responsible for up to 60% of energy used in food retail stores, the number being especially high in small stores. Predictive maintenance to ensure equipment is running properly can help reduce energy consumption.
9. For many hotels, energy is the second biggest cost after labour, with heating accounting for 60% of the total energy costs. Using control and monitoring systems, to ensure heating is only turned on when a room is actually in use can help reduce this figure.
10. There are over 1bn single-room air conditioning units used worldwide and reports have projected that by 2050 this number is likely to increase to over 4.5bn.
11. Buildings currently make up 36% of the world’s energy use.
12. According to a study conducted by MIT, 30% of the energy used in commercial buildings in the US is wasted. With the trend of smart buildings increasing, there is a chance that this number will decrease as smart technology can optimise energy use.
13. To round it off, a statistic that is positively high: global investment in energy efficiency is growing increasing by 9% in 2016 to $231 billion.

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Solutions to Increase Energy Efficiency

RDM offers a wide range of control and monitoring solutions to increase energy efficiency for organisations of any size. Whether it is for businesses in the food retail, hospitality or commercial industry, to name only a few, our solutions can be tailored to fit the exact needs of individual organisations.