Business Energy Balancing – What It Is, Why It Matters And How To Save
If you’re a business owner or manager, you’re no stranger to the pressures of rising costs. In the last few years, it feels like every expenditure has been inching upwards in price, with little sign of it abating. One area where many businesses are feeling the pinch is energy.
The cost of gas and electricity has rocketed in recent years, leaving those who rely on energy services to function to foot bigger bills. This, in turn, can have a negative impact on your bottom line and sustainability goals.
To tackle these issues, many businesses are turning to business energy balancing. This simple practice of balancing your energy usage can lead to real savings, lower emissions and better long-term performance.
In this guide, we take a look at what business energy balancing is in greater detail, why it’s important, and how it can help unlock scores of benefits for your business and the environment as a whole.
Let’s begin with the basics.
What Is Business Energy Balancing?
Business energy balancing involves managing a company’s energy usage to ensure demand and supply are efficiently aligned. The idea is to optimize energy while minimizing waste, cost and strain on your business’s infrastructure.
To do this, strategies can involve:
-
- Monitoring when, where, and how energy is consumed
- Shifting or reducing energy loads during peak demand periods
- Integrating energy-efficient technologies and renewable sources
- Using data-driven tools to make real-time adjustments
It sounds quite simple and to some people, it may even sound obvious. But it’s surprisingly overlooked. Let’s take a look at the benefits of business energy balancing.
Why Does Energy Balancing Matter For Businesses?
If you’re a business owner, it’s a fair question to ask why any of this matters. At the end of the day, can it help you make more money?
Well, the short answer is yes, it can. We’ve covered some of the benefits of energy balancing for businesses above, but here’s a more detailed look:
-
- Reducing costs – Utility bills are one of the largest operational expenses for many businesses. Imbalances lead to inefficiencies and higher peak demand charges, which can eat into profits.
- Improving reliability – Balanced systems are less likely to experience outages, downtime, or performance dips, which over time can help lead to better performance and profits
- Supporting sustainability – A balanced energy approach typically includes the use of renewables, leading to lower carbon emissions. This can help ensure compliance with government regulations.
- Compliance and reporting: Regulations and ESG frameworks require businesses to monitor and reduce energy use, so to avoid getting the likes of a fine, it’s important to factor it into your practices.
You may also have noticed from some of these benefits that they’re becoming increasingly more necessary to do. For example, given the rise in costs, it’s vital to reduce them in any way possible in order to maintain safe profit margins. Sustainability, too, is becoming a standard feature of government policy, so pursuing energy balancing policies can help you stay on the right side of environmental law.
How Does Energy Balancing Work?
So we’ve looked at what energy balancing is and why it can play an important role for businesses. That leaves us with another important question: how does it work?
The idea is to conduct a robust analysis of your business operations to identify any areas you can optimize. For example, if you own a factory producing lightbulbs, you may find that your energy costs are much cheaper during night shifts. With this knowledge, you could move some usual daytime operations to the evening to save on bills.
The first step when it comes to balancing energy is to audit the current system. This process allows you to identify any inefficiencies and weaknesses.
From there, you can use tools and technologies to make predictions on energy usage and to test variables that you could introduce to bring usage down.
The process could also involve looking at different types of energy sources. Nowadays, a lot of attention is paid to renewable energy sources, like onsite solar panels, heat pumps, battery storage and renewable generators. This can all contribute to helping make businesses more self-sufficient, which removes strain on the electricity grid.
How Much Can Energy Balancing Help Your Business?
It’s surprising how something as simple as energy balancing can help your business. Depending on how much you’re potentially being overcharged, you could save between 10 and 30% a month in utility costs.
Conducting an analysis of energy usage could also identify extra savings that you could make by running operations during off-peak times. By this, we mean running operations during times when other businesses are not operating, for example, overnight. By exploring these options, some businesses have been able to reduce commercial energy bills by up to 50%.
You may also find that in some states, your company may meet sustainability targets, which qualify you for tax credits and utility rebates, which puts more money in your pocket.
Energy Balancing and Net-Zero
A key consideration for many businesses right now is the need to achieve net-zero. By this, we mean businesses doing all they can to produce zero emissions, either by reducing the waste they produce or shifting to renewable energy sources, like solar or wind power.
To help you achieve a net-zero goal, energy balancing almost becomes essential. It can help you achieve:
-
- Smarter integration of solar, wind, and other intermittent renewables
- Greater use of energy storage to reduce reliance on the grid
- Reduced carbon footprint through less peak-time fossil fuel usage
Which Industries Benefit The Most From Energy Balancing?
We’ve looked at how energy balancing can benefit businesses. Here, we look at those industries that stand to benefit most of all.
Manufacturing
Manufacturers arguably use the most energy of all business types. Factories can operate 24 hours a day, which means there is no let-up in terms of electricity used. However, these ongoing operations can benefit from energy balancing the most and, in the process, drastically cut costs.
For example, more energy-intensive operations could be moved to the night shift, where you can take advantage of off-peak rates.
Retail
Another big consumer of energy is retail units.
Malls, shopping centres, supermarkets and even high street stores all consume lots of energy, with lighting used sometimes all day every day, as well as AC units and refrigeration systems.
By introducing a policy of energy balancing, businesses can use the likes of smart scheduling to cut costs without disrupting their day-to-day operations.
Data Centers
Data centers are becoming increasingly common as we consume more data on the likes of our mobile devices. New technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) also use up lots of energy in these data centers.
If you’re involved in this industry, it’s vital to understand the different ways you can reduce your energy consumption. Integration with backup systems and predictive analytics is critical to manage the high are just some ways you can achieve this.
Offices
Offices can also be busy operations, but with modern technologies, it’s possible to cut energy usage drastically.
For example, using motion-sensored lighting can help ensure no one leaves a light on overnight. You can also control the likes of ventilation and HVAC through automation and scheduling.
How To Balance Business Energy
We’ve looked at what business energy balancing is and why it’s important. Now it’s time to consider how to undertake the task.
To help you do this, we’ve provided a practical step-by-step overview which you can use as the foundation for your process.
-
- Conduct an energy audit to identify inefficiencies, peak usage times, and areas where you can improve. This creates a data-driven foundation for your energy strategy.
- If you need more data, install smart metering and sub-metering to track energy use in real-time. This helps you identify where waste is occurring and provides the insights needed to adjust operations.
- Identify peak usage periods and shift non-essential energy use to off-peak hours. This has the potential to drastically reduce your bill.
- Invest in automation, such as smart HVAC systems and lighting controls, to optimize energy use without manual intervention.
- You could look to adopt load-shifting strategies by rescheduling energy-intensive tasks to times when energy is cheaper or demand is lower.
- Incorporate renewable generation and storage, like solar panels and battery systems, to supply clean energy when the grid is under pressure or to help you achieve energy self-sufficiency.
- Train staff to follow energy-efficient practices and support long-term behavioral change across the organization. Even simple things like turning appliances off can help.
What Tools Can You Use To Help With Energy Balancing?
It’s all well and good knowing what you need to do, but you also need the tools to help you do it. When it comes to energy balancing, there are a few handy devices, technologies and pieces of software that can make your life much easier.
Here’s a breakdown of some of the most important tools you can use to help with the process:
-
- Energy Management Systems (EMS) – Platforms like Schneider Electric, Siemens Desigo CC, or Johnson Controls Metasys provide real-time data and control, which can be vital when conducting audits.
- Smart meters and IoT sensors – These deliver granular insights into usage and help pinpoint inefficiencies.
- Demand response platforms – Tools like Enel X or AutoGrid can automate participation in different programs, such as those used for utilities.
- Building automation systems (BAS) – These allow scheduling and optimization of HVAC, lighting, and equipment usage.
- Battery storage solutions – LG Chem and similar systems help store and release energy when needed.
As well as this, you can extend your tools to the likes of solar panels and turbines which can help you cut energy bills.
Summarizing The Benefits Of Business Energy Balancing
Business energy balancing is more than just a buzzword—it’s a practical, cost-saving strategy that every forward-thinking organization should adopt. We’ve covered many of the benefits above, but here’s a quick summary:
-
- Lower utility costs and peak demand charges
- Improved system reliability and equipment longevity
- Reduced carbon footprint and support for net-zero goals
- Access to financial incentives and compliance benefits
- Better operational visibility and energy control
With the right tools and a proactive approach, energy balancing can transform how your business uses and pays for power and can help you cut all-important costs at a time when bills are rising.