Energy Saving News
Energy Saving Payback
With current demand for energy raising concerns regarding the future consistency of supply and so-called “green” energy not being sufficient to fill in the gap left by fossil fuels, refurbishing and retrofitting commercial buildings as part of an overall sustainable strategy, is the main challenge for many cities and regions over the next two to five years.
Hence, even if every hillside had a wind turbine, every estuary had a power station, each bay had wave power generation and even if we all made use of solar panels and photovoltaic cells, research suggests we probably will not meet our current energy needs. It might only be possible at best to produce 10% of our needs this way.
Therefore, saving energy has a far better payback than trying to generate “green” energy and existing commercial buildings must be made more energy efficient. Domestic and non-domestic buildings create 46% of our current CO2 output.
One of the most effective ways of improving energy efficiency in commercial real estate is by taking simple measures such as installing intelligent, automated lighting and air-conditioner controls. These have low capital costs and see an early payback in reduced energy bills.
Retrofitting for energy efficiency and sustainability will increase value and extend the age of commercial property with retrofitting investment providing a good ROI.
So rather than a bleak future, current commercial property looks set for a face lift since it makes good financial sense to upgrade these buildings to a sustainable and energy efficient status.
Thursday 4th February 2010
