Executive Director's Message

Juan A. Navejar Jr.

The South Texas temperatures are beginning to rise and with that the costs of keeping your business cool and not breaking your pocket book are on the rise. The bottom line of running a successful business is to make all your dollars count. Cutting back unnecessary energy use keeps hard-earned money in your pocket. 
Here are a couple of ideas, most of which are common sense that may help you this summer.
Whenever possible, don't use large equipment during the peak hours of 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Turn equipment and lights off after hours. Always choose ENERGY STAR® products whenever possible. We changed our florescent light bulbs recently and have seen a decrease on our bill. Set energy-saving features on all your office equipment to put them into sleep mode when not in use.  
We love our air conditions in South Texas but that is the bulk of our electric bill. Set the thermostat in your workspace to 78 degrees during work hours, and raise the setting to 85 degrees when the space is unoccupied. The energy savings can be significant - as much as 2 percent of your air conditioning costs for each one degree that you raise the thermostat. Use a programmable thermostat and make it easy to adjust the settings as well as regulate the temperature when you are closed to avoid unnecessary cooling costs. Consider a locking cover over the thermostat to avoid having employees change temperature settings.
Close window blinds to shade your rooms from direct sunlight. Allow your workers to wear comfortable clothing during hot weather. It makes little sense to keep a room cold enough that workers must wear suits and coats.
To save energy, keep your exterior and freight doors closed as much as possible. Consumers frequently complain about retailers who run their air conditioning on high to keep their stores as cold as possible while leaving their doors wide open.
Keep your cooling and ventilation systems tuned. Maintain a regular filter replacement and cleaning schedule. Don't forget to check ducts and pipe insulation.
Install window film, solar screens or awning in south and west facing windows.
Many businesses can easily reduce lighting without affecting productivity. Turn off as many unnecessary lights as possible. Use task lighting instead of overhead lighting, and light only those areas that are needed at the time. Providing the right lighting can save up to 15 percent on your lighting bill. Again, make sure that equipment and lights are turned off after hours.
Replace old fluorescent lights with newer, more efficient models with electronic ballasts (such as retrofit T12 lights with magnetic ballasts to T8 lights and electronic ballasts).
Replace your high-use incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lights. A compact fluorescent light uses 75 percent less electricity to produce the same amount of light as an incandescent bulb. The compact fluorescent will last about 10,000 hours as opposed to the 600 to 1,000 hour average life of an incandescent. By replacing a 100-watt incandescent with an equivalent 25-watt compact fluorescent, you can save more than $90 per bulb in electricity costs over the 10,000-hour lifetime of the compact fluorescent.
Make sure that bulbs, fixtures, lenses, lamps and reflective surfaces are cleaned regularly. By removing grease, dust and other dirt, you can increase the output of your lights.
Many of leave our computers on 24/7 regardless if we are at work or not. Turn off your computers and any other office equipment when you're not using them, especially overnight and weekends. This practice costs nothing and can potentially save as much as $44 per year, per computer, depending on what you pay per kilowatt-hour.  Choose settings that automatically switch the computer monitor into sleep or "power-down" mode when it hasn't been worked on for a preset amount of time. Shorten the delay time before your monitor automatically goes into sleep mode. Consider having employees use lap top computers since they use up to 90 percent less energy than a standard computer. If it works for your business, consider ink-jet printers which also use 90 percent less energy than laser printers.
Hopefully some of these work for you and your business. We are always looking for ways to save money here, so hopefully you can as well.