How to Save Money on Business Utility Bills
Bills are an unavoidable part of running a business, much like salaries and taxes. However, suppose you’re keen on ensuring your company’s bottom line is impacted as little as possible by how much you spend on fundamental utilities like energy, gas and water. In that case, you’ll want to learn how our small suggestions can help you reduce how much you spend on your bills each month.
Energy-saving ideas to save your business money
Smart plugs
Simply put, smart plugs cut down on unnecessary power consumption. Plugging devices into a smart plug enables the plug to turn the power off to the device when it’s not being used. This reduces wastage and saves you money in the process and also helps to reduce the impact on the environment in the process.
Timers and power fobs
Another way to improve your business efficiency when it comes to power consumption is to install timers and power fobs in low-traffic rooms, such as bathrooms, utility rooms, storerooms, meeting rooms and board rooms. These devices aim to cut off non-essential power such as lighting when the room is not in use – in case people regularly leave lights turned on.
Timers are best suited to bathrooms, utility rooms and storerooms as they will cut off power after a set amount of time. But a power fob makes more sense for meeting and board rooms which are low traffic but can be occupied for extended periods of time. That way, team members can fob in and out before and after meetings, so their non-essential power can be turned off when out of action.
LED lights
We’ve said it before, and we’ll repeat it: using the most efficient lighting in your office can dramatically cut your costs. While it’s great that halogen bulbs have been replaced by LED light bulbs, fluorescent tubes still dominate offices, despite LED tubes being a more efficient option.
This comes from the fact that although the most common fluorescent light tubes – T8-tube types – use slightly more energy than an LED tube, fluorescent lights waste their energy through their ballast. This can be as much as the tube uses itself, which therefore doubles the total consumption. LED tubes don’t have this kind of wastage, which leads to them needing to be replaced less often, which translates to saving on your bill in the long term.
Dishwashers
You’ve probably wondered how you can reduce your water bill too, and if you have a kitchen that frequently has dishes that need to be washed, a dishwasher could be the answer.
According to research by Which? dishwashers reportedly use at least 50% less water based on testing with a slimline dishwasher. Full-size models are even more efficient than washing by hand as you can see in the table below, based on washing up after a meal for two people.
Another reason for dishwashers being more efficient than handwashing is due to the number of place settings they can wash with the same amount of water and energy. Most dishwasher owners will not run their dishwashers half empty and will often wait until they have more dirty plates and dishes before running a cycle.
As so, for those who are on a water meter, it’s clear to see that by using a dishwasher, they’re going to be using far less water to wash up after themselves if they wait until their machine is full. This is compared to handwashing dishes after every meal, which has been shown to use more water, which will have a more direct impact on those on water meters.
Of course, people without a dishwasher, whether that be out of choice or otherwise often point to the cost of running the dishwasher cycles. It’s true that they do use electricity to run their cycles, but nobody should be washing dishes in cold water. So, handwashing dishes will also incur additional costs when heating water to do the washing up by hand.
Solar energy
An investment that will pay dividends for your energy bills in the longer term is installing solar power, such as photovoltaic cells, where possible. Solar cells take some of your business power supply load off the grid, reducing how much you pay your supplier for electricity.
Solar power typically has an ROI of about five years, after which time it will pay for itself and you’ll see the savings. However, making this investment reduces the strain on environmentally harmful power stations so it’s worth considering for more reasons than simply saving money.
Have you switched business energy providers?
Research by industry regulator Ofgem in 2019 showed that 25% of micro businesses were on default and deemed contracts. When only factoring in the smallest microbusinesses (likely those with minimal energy consumption rates), Ofgem suggested that more than a third were on “expensive default contracts”, which highlights how important it is to make sure you know when your business energy contracts expire.
The reality is that switching to a supplier that’s right for your business can translate into significant savings on your overheads. Most businesses know this but don’t want to deal with the hassle of researching and switching suppliers, especially in an energy market with up to 22 business energy suppliers compared to our energy brokers.
Fortunately, an energy broker can take away that hassle for you, and provide expert advice on which tariff best suits your needs, ensuring you only pay what you need to. That’s where Exchange Utility comes in. As an award-winning business energy comparison service, our team of specialists will do the research and find the best tariff for your needs, so you can go back to worrying about your business, not your bills.
Following these simple steps will ensure your business is a lean, green energy efficient machine and improve your bottom line in the process.
Business energy contract due to renew? Call us on 0800 9777 000 or fill in our energy quote form to see how much you could save…