By Kristy Bohling (Financial Education Consultant)
Restaurants are the most energy intensive commercial space in America. According to National Grid, restaurants in the United States spend on average $2.90 per square foot on electricity and $0.85 per square foot on natural gas annually. This means 3 to 5 percent of their total operating costs are typically spent on energy.
If this doesn't convince you to green your restaurant, consider this example: If you have a broiler, try turning it off for one more hour a day. This will save you around $450 a year. While that might not sound like much, if you're operating with a profit margin of 5%, you need $9,000 worth of sales to earn $450.[1] This is just one example of how you can save money by increasing the efficiency of your equipment.
By buying and maintaining energy-efficient equipment and establishing green practices, you could save thousands of dollars a year. Here are some tips to get started:
Turn It Off
Keep equipment like holding cabinets, fryers, griddles, ovens, pasta cookers, broilers, and steamers off unless you need them. Create a startup/shutdown plan for using only the equipment you need.
Conserve Water
Fix leaks and turn faucets all the way off. Use water-saving faucets to save water. Fill dishwashers up before running them. You pay as much for running a half-loaded machine as a fully-loaded machine.
Maintain, Repair, Replace
Replace seals and tighten hinges on ovens. Repair and replace broken panels on ovens and steamers, replace missing knobs on griddles, broilers, and ranges, and clean refrigerator condenser and evaporator coils. While a clogged burner might not seem like a big deal, combine it with a leaky gasket, old refrigerator coils, and a leaky steamer and it adds up to a lot of wasted energy and money.
Shut It
Close the lid on those braising pans, keep lids on your ranges, and shut steamer doors.
Buy Energy Efficient
Energy efficient-approved products are labeled, so you know you're getting an energy efficient product. Imagine you're a restaurant owner with fryers, hot food holding cabinets, solid door refrigerators and freezers, and steam cooks. If you have energy efficient equipment, check out how you can save:
- Fryers: save $180 per year;
- Hot food holding cabinets: save $280 per year;
- Solid door refrigerators and freezers,: save $140 and $100 per year, respectively
- Steam cookers: save $820 a year.
If these amounts don't sound too big individually, add them all up and you can save $1520 a year!
To calculate your potential savings and rebate offers, check out the information at the following sites:
Click here to download our tip sheet on How to Green your Restaurant.
[1] http://fypower.org/pdf/BPG_RestaurantEnergyEfficiency.pdf