Energy audits have become a hot commodity in recent months, and at Cost Containment Intl., we’re doing everything we can to fan the flames. Our business is saving money, and there’s no better way to save on energy than to stop paying for heat, light, electricity and hot water that don’t help your bottom line. If you haven’t audited your site, that’s happening right now, and you’ve got money that is literally going up in smoke.

Still, some people are hesitant to spend money (never mind that the initial stage of an energy audit is free) when they might not need to. So we’ve created a simple test to determine if you’re one of the people who doesn’t need an energy audit.

If you can correctly answer these simple questions, you can rest assured that your energy dollars are well spent.

1. Your main boiler is currently experiencing 15 cycles an hour, and has an ASE of 65 percent. Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
2. Where have you implemented VFDs? Please show plans for full credit.
3. What tools are used to harvest daylight?
4. How much did you increase efficiency through use of CHP (we’re assuming you know what “CHP” stands for)?
5. How many empty rooms in your building are being lit right now? How many were lit twelve hours ago? For full credit, explain how you accurately monitor your lighting.
6. Are you using a Constant Volume HVAC or a VAV?
7. Give a complete list of the federal, state and local incentives for efficiency upgrades in your area. For extra credit, list the results of your engineered tax segregation study.

If you got all of these correct (and if your answers were correct, you’d know it), congratulations. You don’t need an energy audit.

If you didn’t, you’re losing money right now. You’re losing it today, you lost it yesterday, and you’re going to lose it again tomorrow. Cost Containment Intl. would love to help you do something to stop that.

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.

Check the NYMEX

When a customer says “you guys are real bandits, you know that?” and it’s meant as a compliment, you know times have changed. Welcome to the new reality of the energy market.

This happened during an energy audit. There was a lot of potential for saving for this company: some savings would require investment, some was pretty low-hanging fruit. Nonetheless, there was clearly enough savings to be found that some of it could be channeled into an investment in a bit of rooftop solar. A small system, just enough to take the edge off of daily demand, but a good start.

Of course, the Obama administration helped. The solar incentives included in the new stimulus package give businesses a number of options for bringing down and/or recouping parts of the installation costs for solar systems. For small-scale systems, this is a good time for solar incentives. They don’t pay for everything, but again, they take a substantial bite out of the upfront cost.

(There’s more to the current plan than just solar, by the way. We’ll be looking at some of the changes in more detail in the weeks to come.)

Here’s the thing: once the system is in place, he’ll start saving from the get-go. One of the benefits of solar panels is that they generate at highest efficiency during the time of highest, and most costly, electric demand: mid-day. So they give him a way to not just reduce overall demand, but to trim peaks off his load profile. It won’t meet all his demand, not even close, but the savings will be real. And we recommended he take these future savings as they come and put them right back into some of the more impactful efficiency updates.

This was what he meant by us being bandits: we steal a bit from here and a bit from there, put it into something else, then steal what savings that gives us and use it somewhere else again. Keep being opportunistic. Keep grabbing those dollars where they appear and putting them into use creating more savings opportunities. The end result: something which had previously seemed out of reach, a few kW of solar on his roof, suddenly became doable.

This is how a lot of Cost Containment customers are going to find their way into the green energy movement: by thinking like bandits. Pirates, if you like…pirates are usually the heroes in the movies. Rather than looking for the big, one-stop solution, you steal a bit here, steal a bit there, and chip an unreasonable expense down to a reasonable one. Then jump aboard. Parrot optional.

A bit of efficiency. A bit of saving from better procedures. A tax break from the government. A bit of accelerated depreciation. A bit of incentive from the state. A bit of future savings. It all adds up to a whole new solution.

Check the NYMEX

If you are reading the NYMEX numbers looking for indicators of your energy future (as we hope you are), you’re seeing something this week that should interest you. Look past the first few months, which have shown the most volatility. Look longer term. Prices for late-2009 into 2010, which have up until now largely resisted the downward trend in short-term natural gas prices, are beginning to bend to the downward pressure.

At the same time, withdrawals from storage continue run lower than expected, despite the fact that the predicted mild winter is not exactly panning out in the midwest or northeast.

This should interest you greatly.

What this means to you. If we’ve learned one thing this year, it is to resist the urge to make predictions. But these indicators lead us to believe that there is simply too much supply, and too much supply means lower prices. Wells are being shut down, production is being curtailed, but too many producers rushed in during the record prices of July and August, and every attempt to reduce supply is being met by plant closings and slowdowns in the industrial sector.

For you, this means continued opportunity through the winter to improve your energy costs beyond the short term and, for those looking to do so, to lock favorable rates. At Cost Containment Intl., we usually use the winter months to catch up on office work and relax a bit. No such luck this year.

Nothing from nothing leaves…

In perhaps the most telling sign of the current financial situation in America, the US government sold $30 Billion in t-bills last week. Zero yield t-bills. Word is that they could have easily sold two to three times as many of them as they did.

In other words, investors lined up around the block to buy an investment with absolutely no earning potential. People are so nervous about investing that they’ll settle for something that is only guaranteed not to lose them money (actually, the t-bill rate dropped slightly into the negative at the height of the buying).

There’s irony here: our current financial meltdown started when foreign investors lost interest in the low yields of US government-backed securities and found a new favorite investment to replace them: mortgage-backed securities.

What this means to you. When there’s nothing left to invest in, where do you put your money? Under the mattress?

At Cost Containment Intl., we have a different idea. Don’t put it UNDER the mattress. Put it INTO the mattress. In other words, if you can’t invest in anyone else, invest in yourself. Money put into the market may disappear into $50 billion Ponzi schemes, but money spent on hardware upgrades and efficiency improvements keeps bringing returns no matter what the markets do.

Are you still lighting with incandescents? CFLs have never been cheaper. Couple them with room-sensing switches for added savings. Are you holding off on replacing out of date boilers or HVAC systems? You should learn about cogeneration/CHP units. Cost Containment Intl. can audit your current energy systems and suggest responsible investment options. Sometimes, the best way to save is to spend where it counts.

Check the NYMEX

NYMEX prices show evidence that speculators continue to flee this market, allowing traditional supply and demand to hold sway. While there is still short-term fluctuation as the remaining few try to grab quick profits, prices are trending in the direction of demand, and demand is very light right now.

This means natural gas is no longer following its earlier lock step with other speculative markets. While the stock market has enjoyed a sustained rally in anticipation of a new, more responsive federal government, natural gas prices continued to slide, reaching levels not seen since January of 2005.

This has been continued great news for Cost Containment Intl. customers, and we continue to find deals at a time of year when we are usually waiting out the winter price spike. Credit remains tight, but providers are looking to secure their own future, and for them, a secure future requires new customers. For energy costs, at least, this will not be the winter of our discontent.

What this means to you. If the words “blend and extend” aren’t part of your energy vocabulary, you need to learn about them. Give us a call at 877-265-2799, or click here to learn more.

The fireplace: a cutting edge concept

Cost Containment Intl. is committed to the concept of bringing our customers not just low energy costs, but high energy security. This is why, as discussed last week, we encourage customers to embrace secure, if boring, energy conservation. We also encourage them to consider a more exciting possibility: distributed generation.

Sound complicated? Actually, it’s an idea as old as the fireplace. In other words, energy produced on site. No miles of high-tension wires or underground pipes. While it’s unlikely you will ever meet 100% of your needs using onsite generation, it can take a substantial chunk off of your demand.

Distributed generation will play a significant role in America’s greener energy future. While we can envision massive wind farms and concentrated solar thermal assemblies, we also envision every structure using small-scale onsite generation to meet some part of the demand.

This is not as far-fetched as it seems. It has already begun in places where fossil fuels are expensive and solar is plentiful. In Jerusalem, 90% of buildings now use solar assemblies for hot water. All new construction in Hawaii will do the same.

We’ll be discussing some onsite generation options, involving both green energy and conventional fuel sources, in the next few weeks. Know your options. Cost Containment Intl. has plans for your long-term success.

Check the NYMEX