One of the foremost challenges of a small business is to minimize the day-to-day costs of running a business. I believe that it is imperative for businesses to be energy efficient and save money. Businesses spend a lot of money to power a well lit office. Can we reduce the cost of power for the same amount of light? Yes, it can be done by implementing some simple energy saving strategies. I would like to share the measures that we have undertaken to reduce our power bill & maximize our energy resources.

The scenario

Ours is a small office with a seating capacity of around 200-210 cubicles. We had approximately 70 lighting fixtures in our office.

All these were fitted with 2 X 36 Watt CFL bulbs. So even if I used these for 5 hours a day & 22 days a month, I used to consume 2 X 36 X 70 X 5 X 22 = 550 Units of electricity.

What we changed
I changed all these with 15W LEDs. As there are different types of LED bulbs available, we selected the LEDs that are most suitable for our office & existing false-ceiling coverage.

With the same formula, if I calculate the power on lighting per month, it will be 15 X 70 X 5 X 22=115 Units.

What we saved
With this small exercise we saved more than 400 units per month, i.e. we started saving more than Rs 3000/- per month on our power bill. I did invest Rs 30,000/- for this change, but I will get this amount back within a year through the savings on my electricity bill.

Though this may seem like a small saving, there is a saying “one unit saved is equivalent to two units generated”. So I am proud to say that I have saved 400 X 2 units of power.

What next?
We are planning to separate the lighting line & opt for solar power for complete office lighting. Initially, this may be a big investment, compared to the ROI, but if one considers the saving in the generator capacity & diesel saving during power cuts, I feel that this will be a worthwhile investment.

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