Energy Efficiency in a Biggish Shop - How?

Kintarō Hattori

Hey Folks,

Excuse my severe ignornace for not doing this sooner and for having a movie motivate me to do what I should have been doing anyway. But I saw An Incovienient Truth the other day and it was pretty startling so I'm going to try and do what I can to be more energy efficient.

My main reason for posting is that I do the purchasing for the computer range of items in the shop that I work in and I'm going to try and be more energy efficient in whatever way I can.

1. AMD produce a range of energy efficient processors. I had seen these before and wasn't going to get them in as they are more expensive than their energy hungry counterparts. I've now decided to get them in and offer them alongside the regular cheaper range of processors that we sell.

2. Where possible I'm going to try and make sure that the power supplies we sell have a high as possible energy efficiency. I think we're doing OK as the ones we stock at the moment are about 80% minimum or so which is pretty good for computer power supplies.

3. Obviously I'm aware of energy saving lightbulbs, but being a shop the vast majority of the bulbs are of the flurorescent and halogen types. Are there energy saving versions of these produced and if so are they readily available in Dublin and where so?

4. I think we recycle, but I'm not 100% on that so I'm going to look in for that and press home that we should be doing that.

5. That's all I can think of at the moment, so I would honestly welcome any suggestions or ways that I can help make the store more energy efficient.

Many thanks.

netwhizkid

I guess if a large shop was to switch to green generated electricity it would defiantly lighten their carbon footprint considerably. But as you said yourself, energy efficiency if a very good idea too.

The ideal scenario being using as little energy as feasible and the energy that is used been green generated would help too.

kerrymaninld

Many shops and public businesses are adopting renewable energy technologies to partially address this. For example, have a look at Navan Credit Union, they have a load of Solar (Electric Panels) on the roof. You could also consider a wind turbine, depending on where your shop is (if you have no room in front or behind your premises, forget it, and the small turbines won't do much for your load requirements).

Other things:-

- Consider a heat recovery ventilation system
- Make sure your front door has a catch that snaps closed after someone
enters, retaining the heat as best as possible

gonk

Check out Sustainable Energy Ireland's website www.sei.ie - they have a substantial section on energy efficiency in business.