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Do you run your own business? Are high energy costs impacting your running costs?

If you run your own business, you’ll be acutely aware of the rising cost of energy and the significant impact it can have on running costs. But do you fully understand where you consume the most energy, how you might be wasting energy and the changes you could make that could significantly reduce your energy costs?

BEST was launched in Autumn 2018 to work with small and medium-sized businesses to help them to understand their energy consumption better and to identify where they can reduce their energy usage in their day to day business operations, thereby saving them money.

BEST is funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and is delivered by local Councils Gateshead, Newcastle, North Tyneside, Northumberland and Sunderland. The project aims to reduce carbon emissions from businesses and this can only be achieved by helping SMEs to reduce energy consumption, which of course reduces their energy bills.

BEST will do this, initially, by providing you with a free energy audit of your business, carried out by energy specialists Narec DE. They will identify areas where improvements in energy efficiency can be made and will work with your business to develop a plan to achieve these savings. Maybe there are improvements to your building that could reduce your energy usage? Or you may need to replace inefficient machinery or simply adopt new practices, that will make a real difference to the amount of energy you use. Narec DE will make the process of carrying out the energy audit as easy as possible, with the minimum disruption to your business operations.

Upon completion of the energy audit, you will receive a detailed report including recommendations of actions that you can take to reduce energy consumption. There is no obligation for you to do anything. You can simply file the audit report away and watch as your energy bills continue to rise, or you can take positive action to implement some of the audit’s recommendations. Some of these might be simple changes in behaviour that will cost you nothing. Others might involve some investment, but the audit report will detail exactly which investments will have the greatest impact, along with costings and details of the savings these changes could bring.

We can provide a grant to cover one third of the costs, for projects up to £24,999 (minimum grant £1000) and Narec DE will be on-hand to help you complete your application.

We could fund a wide range of energy-saving measures. These might include:

• Replacing older inefficient lighting with new energy-efficient LED lighting
• Boiler replacement
• IT servers
• Production equipment
• Lighting and heating controls
• Motors and fans
• Ventilation and air-conditioning
• Improvements to the fabric of the business premises to reduce heat-loss
• Fridges and chilling equipment

If you are interested in reducing your energy costs, go to BEST to find out more and to complete a simple online eligibility form.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by BEST .