How much can we save? – ROI

Is the million-dollar question, and it is actually very hard and expensive to answer before you measure. It is one of the most common questions we get. Based on experience from thousands of optimised systems we know that it is usually possible to save 10% to 30% of the electricity, consumed in Air Conditioning, Refrigeration and Heat Pump (HVACR) systems. However, the actual saving and ROI for you will depend on different factors. Based on your situation.

“To measure is to know”

Even if it is more than 100 years ago that Lord Kelvin said the famous words “to measure is to know”. They are still true today. To say how much it is possible to save and give an accurate ROI (return on investment) you need to have the information which can only be obtained by measuring in the correct way. Do you see the catch 22? It is a leap of faith!

The investment to determine your saving potential needs to be done before you can accurately calculate the saving potential. However, when data is collected and analysed it should be easy to say how much can be saved, and then follow up the result.

A rough estimation based on experience is still possible even without performance analysis.

Where to Look

First you need to know how much electricity that is consumed by the system you want to optimise. HVACR systems usually consumes 30% to 60% of commercial buildings electricity and around 50% in supermarkets. We have made a free guide that you can help you include HVACR systems into your maintenance program.

Maintenance costs, yearly services, and reparations as well as costs that could have been avoided needs to be taken in account. Good maintenance is crucial (and will always be). However, the quality of maintenance should be based on much more than on how quick a technician arrives when there is a breakdown. The cost of service is hard to calculate (see below). However, there are some examples; In this report it was concluded that on average there was a service visit every twelfth day each costed (on average) 540€.  

Breakdowns and failures often stand for a big part of the maintenance cost; however the majority of failures and breakdowns are possible to avoid. In the case of an accident, it is not an option to not fix the breakdown. This is hard to calculate, nevertheless it is important to understand that it is a potential area to save a lot of money.

Additional costs, if a supermarket loses its cooling capacity it will result in high cost due to the destroyed food. In a hotel or an office building a breakdown in the Air Conditioning will create a lot of unhappy customers. The cost for a new system and the installation of it should be considered. To get an exact estimation of your system, it needs to be evaluated. Normally you can count on a couple of thousands euros to get going, the installation of ClimaCheck is usually covered in less than two years thanks to the savings ClimaCheck enables.

ROI Calculator

We have made a basic ROI calculator where you can add your electricity consumption, cost per kWh, saving as well as potential cost and saving for maintenance. So, you can do an estimation of your potential. If you want help or learn more how you can analyse and optimise your system. Book a demo with us.

More savings

As you can see the ROI vary and is affected by both maintenance cost/savings as well as the energy consumption/savings. One thing that isn’t included in the calculator, is the savings if you avoid a failure. The cost to change a broken compressor can be from a couple of thousands to tens of thousands of euros. So, avoiding a compressor failure would in many cases cover the whole installation. This is one of the reasons that makes predictive maintenance so cost efficient.

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