Just how weak is energy demand right now? It appears that the Swine Flu is capable of infecting commodity prices in the energy markets. Prices declined across the board, and one of the culprits was fear that travel restrictions, or simply travel disinclination on the part of the public, would reduce fuel demand even more.
Meanwhile, we’re being told not to blame the pigs for all this.
Well, we’re willing to cut the swine some slack when it comes to viruses, but there are some other pigs…or hogs, anyway…that we think have been living too high on the hog for far too long. We’re talking about energy hogs of course: out-of-date systems, leaky or uninsulated pipes and ducts, “dumb” motors and controls and the like.
With more of our customers requesting energy audits, we’re finding them in abundance. We’ll resist the urge to say they’re a pandemic…but that’s pretty much what we’re finding.
Unless you’ve installed new systems or upgrades within the past year, it’s highly unlikely that the concept of a “smart” system was even part of the conversation, because energy systems have been built on the assumption of cheap fuel and on the principle of keeping costs down. You turn them on, they run. You turn them off, they don’t.
The problem is that in the real economy, the cost of operating a wasteful system far outstrips any savings from a cheap purchase cost. And systems which don’t react to hourly, daily, and seasonal changes in load are hogging fuel most of the time they’re in operation. It’s easy to picture the waste when you light a room and nobody’s there. What we’re showing people during energy audits is how to picture the waste of a motor running full-tilt all the time when most of that power isn’t needed.
This is the idea behind “intelligent” systems: they monitor conditions and such as load and environment and adjust output accordingly. There’s an assumption, we’re finding, that intelligent systems are complex and expensive. They can be, but they don’t have to be. Many are simple and some are surprisingly cheap for the return they give.
Have we recommended that people replace systems that are still in good working order? You bet. And when they tell us that “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” we remind them that the system might not be broke, but they could be.
We’ll be doing a detailed walk through energy audits in the weeks to come.