Does your business need its own energy manager?

Should you rely on internal resources to start your energy management journey?

Or seek external assistance from an ESCO, especially for financing help? (If you don’t even know where to begin looking for money, check this previous post on funding resources for energy efficiency projects).

For a quick overview about what energy managers do, what professional skills to look for and how energy management in general might fit into your business model, no matter what your company does, check out this infographic:

Read more

Of all commercial buildings, restaurants use the highest amount of energy per square metre. In fact, UK Power and the Family Hospitality Group estimate that anywhere between 5 to 15% of a restaurant’s total expenditure can be taken up by energy alone!

Considering that the average profit margin of a full-service restaurant is usually less than 10% of gross revenue – energy consumption suddenly becomes a BIG financial concern.

In keeping with our industry focus series, where we have previously talked about energy management in hotels, supermarkets, and office buildings, this article spotlights how restaurants can work on bringing down their energy costs.

Read more

Energy efficiency and savings for SMEs sounds nice on paper, but can be much more complicated in practice. Only 5 years ago nearly 40% of European SMEs (more than 7.5 million companies) had not implemented any energy saving or efficiency actions whatsoever.

With the European Commission’s Winter Package proposal for a 30% energy efficiency target by 2030, energy audits targeting SMEs could unlock incredible energy savings potential in Europe. Unfortunately, due to their small size, sectoral variation, and low returns per customer, ESCOs have a particularly difficult time reaching the SME market in order to reach these targets. Yet, if SMEs implemented energy efficiency measures to their full potential, they could shave more than 20% off their energy bills. And that is something SMEs in Europe and beyond simply can’t afford NOT to do.

Most importantly, SMEs have very specific needs when it comes to energy efficiency. ESCOs need to do a better job of recognising and addressing these pain points. To help with that, here is a list of the top energy efficiency challenges faced by small and medium-sized enterprises:

Read more

With most of us celebrating the arrival of spring, it’s the perfect time to take a closer look back at the European Union Winter Package and how the changes will affect the everyday work of energy professionals in the short and medium term.

Read more

As of 1st April 2017, the English water retail market will open up for businesses, charities and public sector bodies. It will be the biggest retail market for water services in the world. Plus, what better moment than World Water Day to understand what the UK water market deregulation is all about?

Most importantly – how can your ESCO leverage the opportunities hidden within these regulatory changes?

Read more

Let’s not beat around the bush: there are some monumental challenges facing commercial and industrial (C&I) sectors regarding energy costs and energy management. These challenges require a specific set of professional skills for the energy managers and teams who will deal with them.

The ability to engage and collaborate with other related stakeholders as vendors, business owners, building owners, real estate firms, government officials, educators and business owners to achieve the required goals of decreasing the overwhelming cost of energy consumption is very important.

In this guest post, experienced energy engineer and Dexma guest blogger Magdy Aly reveals the top 10 energy manager skills that will enable present and future energy professionals to overcome major challenges.

Read more

A few weeks ago, to prepare our free training on carbon emissions reporting, we sat down with Cristina Raventós, a senior consultant and Spain portfolio manager at Carbon Clear.

Carbon Clear specialises in carbon footprint calculation and the creation of sustainability and emissions reduction strategies. In this exclusive interview, Cristina helps us understand the state of the European market when it comes to carbon management (and the regulation of other greenhouse gases).

Read more