Enigin Update - Survey Reveals Energy Efficiency Desire and Financial Challenges
A NEW survey, the 2011 Energy Efficiency Indicator, reveals growing interest in energy efficiency gains, despite hurdles in raising the necessary finance.
The survey, released yesterday by Johnson Controls, claims that many companies face financial challenges when trying to improve the energy efficiency of their buildings, this is despite ever increasing recognition that energy efficiency projects deliver outstanding short and long-term benefits.
The report surveyed companies from six European states, discovering that a little under a third of the 857 who responded, felt that insufficient budgets is the main hurdle to moving forward with energy efficiency programmes, despite the proven interest in energy efficiency and its cost savings.
The survey, which covered private and public sector executives, found that 61 percent rated energy management as extremely or very important, up from 55 percent last year, with a drop to just six percent of respondents who have no plans to reduce energy consumption in 2011.
Almost 80 percent of executives said their organisations or businesses had set an energy goal, with only eight percent stating that they were not seeking to make any carbon emissions reductions.
Johnson Controls’ Iain Campbell, commented that companies are evermore turning to external finance to benefit from taking energy efficiency action in areas such as efficient lighting, ventilation and air conditioning systems or onsite renewable energy.
"Interest is growing in improving the energy efficiency of buildings to achieve sustainability goals," Campbell explained.
"We know that when organisations have access to external funding and technical expertise they implement a greater number of improvement measures, achieve greater savings and realise additional energy reductions.
"It's clear that incentives can jump start activity, but it's also clear that those incentives can go away. There has to be something underpinning subsidies to sustain the activity. Financial mechanisms that can tie more directly to cost savings is what we believe can sustain activity beyond the lifespan of incentives."
Agostino Renna, of Johnson Controls, added that the results revealed an appetite for energy efficient buildings but many managers were uncertain on how to implement energy efficiency strategies.
"Everyone has come to the conclusion that energy efficiency is important," he said. "[The report] also proves that the technology and knowledge exists to do this. We spend a lot of time talking about ‘why energy efficiency' but we need to talk about 'how'."
Worldwide Enigin Distributors are helping the private and public sectors to improve energy efficiency in their buildings and facilities, with an excellent return on investment through impressive savings in energy demand and hence costs. By implementing energy efficiency solutions from Enigin, decision makers gain control of their energy use with full, real-time and analytical energy use data to see how and where to apply energy efficient measures.
Picture by Jeff Willcox
