More: Home Energy Audit (Energy Star, US Only)

Home Energy Audits

A home energy audit is often the first step in making your home more efficient. An audit can help you assess how much energy your home uses and evaluate what measures you can take to improve efficiency. But remember, audits alone don't save energy. You need to implement the recommended improvements. ENERGY STAR provides extensive information about home improvement projects to enhance energy efficiency, lower utility bills, and increase comfort.

You can perform a simple energy audit yourself, or have a professional energy auditor perform a more thorough audit.

Do-It-Yourself Audits

If you have five minutes and your last 12 months of utility bills, use the ENERGY STAR Home Energy Yardstick to compare your home's energy efficiency to similar homes across the country and get recommendations for energy-saving home improvements from ENERGY STAR. You will also need to enter some basic information about your home (such as zip code, age, square footage, and number of occupants). If you don't have your bills, contact your utility for a 12-month summary.

Hire a Professional Home Energy Auditor

If you are interested in getting specific recommendations for improving the efficiency of your home, consider contacting a professional Home Energy Auditor. A professional auditor can use a variety of techniques and equipment to determine the energy efficiency of your home. Thorough audits often use equipment such as blower doors, which measure the extent of leaks in the building envelope, and infrared cameras, which reveal hard-to-detect areas of air infiltration and missing insulation.

Your first step should be to contact your utility to see if they offer free or discounted energy audits to their customers. If not, you can hire a home energy professional, such as a certified Home Energy Rater, to evaluate your home's energy efficiency.

To find a Home Energy Rater, visit the ENERGY STAR for Homes Partner Locator.

Home Performance with ENERGY STAR

Where available, Home Performance with ENERGY STAR can help you cost-effectively improve your home's energy efficiency. Specially-trained contractors evaluate your home using state-of-the-art equipment, recommend comprehensive improvements that will yield the best results, and help you to get the work done.

Find out if Home Performance with ENERGY STAR is offered near you.

Energy Saving For Pump and Fan Application

This one of ways to saving your energy. Usually this applicable at industrial and building. On that application, 72% of electricity consumed is used to turn motors. You can follow me save our world by saving the energy, by click here and find out more.

If you have any questions or you need the details, don't hesitate to contact me.

Identify Hidden Cost in Mechatronic System

When first time I work in EPC company, I had nothing experience about mechatronics system. Nevertheless, I'm studied it hard. Now, I can know all things about it.

Now, I has found hidden energy saving system in mechantronic system. I never realize that, but it's true. You and I can identify hidden cost and make the most of potential savings.

This saving can be used in industrial appliance like convenience food, pharmacy and process integrator. Please click here to find more about mechatronics energy savings. I got it from Sartorius Mechatronic System, German company.

Energy Saving Calculator Software for Motor (Pump & Fans) Application

I had got it from Schneider Electric. Please click here for download.

Please use it wisely. This software has more powerful tools for energy saving calculation in motor and pump application, usually called HVAC Application.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

How To Achieve Energy Saving???

30% savings are available through existing EE solutions, but to really understand where these opportunities are, let’s understand first the main differences between Passive and Active EE.

Passive EE is regarded as the installation of countermeasures against thermal losses, the use of low consumption equipment and so forth. Active Energy Efficiency is defined as effecting permanent change through measurement, monitoring and control of energy usage. It is vital, but insufficient, to make use of energy saving equipment and devices such as low energy lighting. Without proper control, these measures often merely militate against energy losses rather than make a real reduction in energy consumed and in the way it is used.

Everything that consumes power – from direct electricity consumption through lighting, heating and most significantly electric motors, but also in HVAC control, boiler control and so forth – must be addressed actively if sustained gains are to be made. This includes changing the culture and mindsets of groups of individuals, resulting in behavioural shifts at work and at home, but clearly, this need is reduced by greater use of technical controls.
- 10 to 15% savings are achievable through passive EE measures such as installing low consumption devices, insulating building, etc.
- 5 to 15% can be achieved through such as optimizing usage of installation and devices, turn off devices when not needed, regulating motors or heating at the optimized level…
- Up to 40% of the potential savings for a motor system are realized by the Drive & Automation
- Up to 30% of the potential for savings in a building lighting system can be realized via the lighting control system
- And a further 2 to 8% can also be achieved through active EE measures such as putting in place a permanent monitoring and improvement program

But savings can be lost quickly if there is:
- Unplanned, unmanaged shutdowns of equipment and processes
- Lack of automation and regulation (motors, heating)
- No continuity of behaviors

Energy Efficiency is not different form other disciplines and we take a very rational approach to it, very similar to the 6Sigma DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control) approach.

As always, the first thing that we need to do is to measure in order to understand where are the main consumptions, what is the consumption pattern, etc. This initial measurement, together with some benchmarking information, will allow us see howgood or bad we are doing, to define the main improvement axis and an estimation of what can be expected in terms of gains. We can not improve what we can not measure.

Then, we need to fix the basics or what is called passive EE. Change old enduse devices by Low consumption ones (bulbs, motors, etc), Improve the Insulation of your installations, and assure power quality reliability in order to be able to work in a stable environment where the gains are going to sustainable over time. After that, we are ready to enter into the automation phase or Active Energy efficiency. As already highlighted, everything that consumes power must be addressed actively if sustained gains are to be made.

Active Energy Efficiency can be achieved not only when energy saving devices and equipment are installed, but with all kind of end-use devices. It is this aspect of control that is critical to achieving the maximum efficiency. As an example, consider a low consumption bulb that is left on in an empty room. All that is achieved is that less energy is wasted compared to using an ordinary bulb, but energy is still wasted!

Responsible equipment manufacturers are continually developing more efficient products. However, while for the most part the efficiency of the equipment is a fair representation of its energy saving potential - say, in the example of a domestic washing machine or refrigerator - it is not always the case in industrial and commercial equipment. In many cases the overall energy performance of the system is what really counts. Put simply, if an energy saving device is left permanently on stand-by it can be less efficient than a higher consuming device that is always switched off when not in use.

Summarizing, managing energy is the key to maximizing its usefulness and economizing on its waste. While there are increasing numbers of products that are now more energy efficient than their predecessors, controlling switching or reducing settings of variables such as temperature or speed, makes the greatest impact.

What Can I Do to Save Energy?

All of us use energy every day—for transportation, cooking, heating and cooling rooms, manufacturing, lighting, and entertainment. The choices we make about how we use energy—turning machines off when we’re not using them or choosing to buy energy efficient appliances—impact our environment and our lives.

There are many things we can do to use less energy and use it more wisely. Two main ways to save energy are energy conservation and energy efficiency. Many people think these terms mean the same thing, but they are different.

Energy conservation is any behavior that results in the use of less energy. Turning the lights off when you leave the room and recycling aluminum cans are both ways of conserving energy.

Energy efficiency is the use of technology that requires less energy to perform the same function. A compact fluorescent light bulb that uses less energy than an incandescent bulb to produce the same amount of light is an example of energy efficiency. The decision to replace an incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent is an example of energy conservation.