Are you battling to identify ways that your organization can save electricity?  A number of companies and organizations in Durban have successfully implemented electricity saving projects that have significantly reduced their electricity bill.   The Imagine Durban project, in conjunction with eThekwini’s Energy Office and Department of Electricity, has developed a booklet that explains a number of success stories in electricity savings.     

Durban based industries such as Toyota, South African Breweries, Mondipak and Etlin Trading have kindly provided details on changes that they have made in their organization to achieve electricity savings of between 7% and 25%.  The booklet explains the processes the organizations employed to identify potential savings and the actual projects that they implemented to achieve these savings.  Where available, information on the costs of implementation and total financial savings are also provided in the booklet. 

In addition to the industrial section, the booklet has other case studies of electricity savings in buildings, retail facilities, hotels, restaurants and schools.  The case studies provide excellent pointers to organizations in these different sectors on the type of interventions that would be most effective in generating savings.  

Examples of the types of interventions discussed in the book range from the very complex and expensive, to the very simple and cheap.  For instance, Toyota identified compressors as a major consumer of electricity and as a result made a R2 million rand investment in an intelligent compressed air management system to replace the manual timers on their compressors.  This system adjusts the output of compressed air to changes in production and can identify leaks.  The cost of the equipment was paid off in the first year as a result of the large scale of savings.    Umhlanga Sands Hotel installed low flow shower heads in all of their rooms at a cost of R9000.  The low flow shower heads save electricity by reducing the amount of hot water used and as a result the amount of energy spent on water heating.

The cost of the shower heads was recuperated in a few months as a result of the electricity saving achieved.   

A small set of examples of case studies in electricity savings for residential homes has also been developed.  This will provide individuals with some good ideas on effective measures to improve their electricity savings.  

• Click here to download an electronic copy of the commercial booklet ...
• Click here to download an electronic copy of the residential booklet ...

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