The United States in one of the world’s largest countries, so of course that comes with a wide variety of climates.

In the south, one couldn’t imagine living without air conditioning, but in the midwest home buyers view it as less important than a garage (where you keep your car from freezing).

In some parts of the country, one might rarely use central heat, but for businesses in New England or the midwest, heating might be the most expensive utility, by far.

Since freezing isn’t really an option, here are some ideas for saving money on utilities, while staying warm, all winter.

Get to Know Your Options

The first utility bill after a cold spell often serves as a wakeup call to businesses, and only then do they start taking measures to conserve resources.

You don’t have to wait for sticker shock to get started…you can understand what will occur and prepare, making for a much more pleasant first chilly-weather utility bill experience.

Consider appointing an energy lead or team to get to know your heating needs, and take active measures for improvement. Your energy leader could:

• Take a look at past usage
• Examine areas of biggest use
• Determine possibilities for conserving energy
• Promote smart energy usage within the workplace

Throughout the year, the conservation team might encourage such activities as turning off computer monitors at the end of the day. In the fall and early winter, though, such a team might focus recommendations on setting thermostats lower at night, limiting the use of space heaters, or other conservation efforts.

Enlist Support

The more your team is engaged in the process of conserving energy, the more buy in you might get.

Examples are limitless, but here are a couple:

• A church, looking to save on heating expenses, coordinates the use of various spaces and only heats during prearranged occupancy. Lockboxes might even be installed over thermostats, to prevent the extreme, knee-jerk temperature changes that come from last minute occupancy.
• An office agrees to a game of saving energy. Everyone where sweaters and other warmer clothing, rather than raising the temperature a couple of degrees and running space heaters. To get everyone on board with the game, they came up with a prize: reduce the utility expenses a certain percent and they get a catered lunch that Friday.

How straightforward or creative your conservation efforts go is entirely up to your workplace team and culture, but whatever measures you take you will reduce your energy bill.

Explore Your Options

For a more dramatic cut in heating costs, beyond what wearing sweaters can achieve, consider an energy soft audit.

An energy audit can determine both where your facilities waste the most energy and where you can focus efforts to make the biggest impact.

Thanks to incentives and purchasing options available, it may be possible to make energy upgrades and dramatically slash energy expenses now and for the future. Examples include:

• Structural upgrades, such as windows or spray foam insulation
• Utility upgrades, such as heaters, water heaters or appliances
• Energy generation upgrades, such as the installation of onsite solar panels

While some parts of the country experience shorter, cloudy days throughout the winter, some of the coldest climates have their sunniest days in the winter–such geographic locations are perfect for solar energy solutions.

Energy Professionals

Since the possibilities for saving money while staying warm this summer are limitless, it can be difficult to know where to begin.

That’s where Energy Professionals comes in. As independent energy brokers, we can help you secure the best resources at the best rates for all of your energy needs–from reducing energy needs, to negotiating contract terms, to energy upgrades.

Contact us to find out how you can save money on heating expenses this winter.

On Saturday, May 5, team member Chris Griffin was killed in a tragic auto accident. Chris spent more than a decade with our team, at North American Energy Advisory and with the newly-formed Energy Professionals. Over the years he matured from a hesitant customer service rep to a confident, knowledgable and trusted energy advisor to his clients. Most of all, he was a beloved and integral part of our team. Not only was he one of my top Energy Consultants, he was also one of my best friends. He is greatly missed. The following is a remembrance from Energy Professionals President, Jim Mathers.

You have spent over 24,960 hours with us and that was just not enough time.
We feel grief and we feel the grief of all your friends and family members.
Over the past 12 years, you were not just a co-worker or an employee. You were and will always be family to us too.
We will miss you, NOT because of your stellar production year after year. We will miss you because of your winks, your smile, your loyalty, your advice, your care, your great attitude, your quiet way of getting things done, your wild and funny comments and your willingness to always help.
We love you Chris and we all miss you.
Your family always and forever,

North American Energy Advisory & Energy Professionals, LLC

PS- You were and always will be the only person allowed to call the ladies “sugar” and get away with it.

Technology has changed the way companies can monitor, control and conserve energy. While energy management is one of the most cost effective ways to improve a company’s bottom line, many organizations are either unaware of what steps to take to take control of their energy consumption, or unable to enact new processes and procedures due to budgetary concerns.

So how do you go about identifying, and solving these issues without wasting more time and money on them? The first step is to recognize where your company is vulnerable, and what cost efficient solutions are available to you to correct or improve these issues.

In the 1980’s, energy management meant paying your bill on time, and remembering to turn off the lights when you leave the room. In the 1990’s, energy deregulation ushered in a new way for businesses to affect their energy budget. For the first time, commercial and industrial customers (C&I) could shop for the price they would pay for each unit of energy they consumed. The advent of the internet started a boom of rudimentary ways to monitor how much energy everything in your building was using, however they provided no solutions to help you on how to correct or prevent waste. Now in the new millennium, technology has helped evolve programs and projects so the mid-sized C&I customer could now have the transparency and visibility that only the largest corporations have enjoyed.

Take Charge of your Electric & Natural Gas bills by switching suppliers.

Did you know:

 You don’t have to use the default electricity supplier that your utility company uses to power your home? Instead, you can compare rates from dozens of suppliers online and reduce your monthly electricity bill. You could even switch to a renewable energy source without having to install solar panels.

Understanding your Electric Bill

 Every month, like clockwork, your energy bill arrives. If you know where to look, it contains some useful information regarding your energy usage and rates. And while it varies by location, most electricity bills are broken down into two sections:

1. Distribution or Delivery Charges
2. Supply Charges

Distribution/Delivery Charges:

 This is the cost that you pay to the utility for maintaining the poles, wires and transmission stations to get the electricity to you. In addition, this section will include any additional fees or taxes you might be responsible for.

 Supply Charges:

 This is what you pay for the electricity itself. This can also be called the generation charge, and is determined by the price per kilowatt hour x monthly number of kilowatt hours.

We just talked to a business owner in Houston who was paying 13 cents/kWh!!!

We just saved her $1000’s in less than an hour!

Did you know it takes about 15 minutes for us to determine whether you are receiving the best available option for your electric supply? The North American Energy Advisory has repeatedly found that Texas consumers have not always been given the best rates available in their area.

The number of participants in the “Maryland Energy Choice Program” has increased over the past few years, primarily due to higher utility default supply rates and alternative energy providers providing lower competitive supply prices. Customers who receive their electric bill from BG&E, PEPCO, Potomac Edison, and Delmarva Power & Light can shop for an electricity and natural gas supplier who might be able to provide a better price than the utility standard default rate. However, the overall switch rate is still low in Maryland, when compared to other electricity choice markets.In the Baltimore region, despite the lowest BG&E electricity suppliers offering rates below the default rate, less than 30% of customers in the area were buying power from a competitive supplier.

Now more than ever, Maryland electricity consumers have a variety of ways to reduce their rising energy costs. If Maryland utilities default supply rate remains higher than competitive prices, as it has been for the past few years, the number of electricity shoppers in the area is expected to see a sharp increase.

Today I had the privilege of meeting Andy Jorgensen and toured his maintenance facility at Candler Hills Golf course.  We could search high and low and not find a better poster child for the energy and cost savings initiatives we want to roll through the nation’s golf courses.

What you see above is their maintenance building,

North American Energy Advisors are proud to support the NGCOA and Golf instruction nationwide.

Every new president appoints advisors whose advice they trust based on past performance…to add certainty for decisions.

You hopefully don’t take the first opinion given to you by a doctor, and in financial planning you undoubtedly have an advisor that you trust to give you the best information.  Ideally, those advisors do not recommend the purchase of only their own product or service as it’s the “obvious best”.