Energy management
7 min read
In this article
Make the day easier.
Find ways to cut waste, handle complaints and keep repairs moving across your sites.
Energy waste is not always obvious at the thermostat. A store can feel comfortable while the HVAC runs too early, too late or harder than it should. Across many sites, those small problems can become a steady drain on your energy budget.
The short answer
Commercial energy management gets more useful when a high bill leads to a specific check. Look for wrong schedules, forgotten overrides, unnecessary occupied-mode settings, conflicting controls, slow cooling, unresolved repairs and settings that no longer fit the site. Confirm the cause before changing comfort or ventilation requirements.
What matters most
Look for holiday schedules and temporary overrides that never got reset.
Investigate long runtime and repeat repairs at high-use locations.
Assign a specific correction to each finding and check that it helped.
Heating or cooling at the wrong times
The store closes at one time; its HVAC schedule says another. Holiday hours, seasonal changes and late events are common reasons the two drift apart.
Compare the active schedule with the full working day. Include preparation, cleaning and deliveries as well as customer hours. A building can be closed to customers and still need heating or cooling for the people inside.
If the schedule is wrong, correct it within the site’s approved requirements and check the next opening. The location should be ready for staff without running unnecessarily for hours beforehand.
This is a useful first step in commercial energy management because it gives your team something specific to fix. Keep a record of the change so you can tell whether the same mistake returns.
Forgotten overrides and unnecessary occupied-mode settings
A temporary override never ended: A manager changed the temperature during a busy day. Nobody remembered to put it back. Look for overrides that have outlasted the event that caused them.
Ask why the change was made before removing it. If staff keep overriding the same setting, the original schedule may not meet the store’s needs. Solve that problem rather than repeatedly resetting the thermostat and waiting for another complaint.
An empty space still follows its occupied settings: Check whether settings meant for a busy store continue through unoccupied periods. That can be different from a wrong opening time: the schedule may change, while a particular setting does not.
Confirm why each setting is there. Required ventilation and equipment-protection needs must still be met. The task is to remove unnecessary operation, not to assume that every fan or unit should turn off when customers leave.
How it works
Turn a high-use store into useful work
Example steps for reviewing a location that needs attention.
1
Check its actual hours
Confirm when staff and customers use the building.
2
Review its settings
Look for wrong schedules and forgotten exceptions.
3
Look at struggling units
Investigate equipment that runs without meeting the store’s needs.
4
Check the result
Review comfort, service follow-up and the energy comparison.
Controls that appear to be working against each other
A location may have several units, zones or controllers. Staff may adjust them separately to solve a local complaint. Over time, the store can end up with settings nobody would have chosen together.
The goal of this check is to identify a correctable operating problem. Do not change a store’s comfort requirements simply because its bill is high; first find the runtime or control conflict behind the extra use.
Look for conflicting temperature requests or unexplained differences between nearby areas. Check which controller serves which space and whether the equipment arrangement makes the readings understandable.
Some systems intentionally perform functions that may look wasteful without the full picture. Have a qualified person review suspected conflicts before changing controls. Do not diagnose the problem from two numbers on a dashboard alone.
For the facilities manager, the useful next step is a clear question: which settings are in place, why are they different and do they match the design and the store’s needs?
A unit runs longer but the store still feels warm
Longer runtime can be expected on a hotter day. It deserves closer attention when the unit is running more and the space is no longer reaching a comfortable temperature.
Check the weather, active settings and actual store hours. Ask whether the problem is new and whether any work was done recently. If those checks do not explain it, send the history to the service team.
Repeatedly lowering the setpoint may leave the original problem untouched. A technician needs to investigate why the unit is struggling, not just see that the requested temperature changed again.
The HVAC anomaly detection guide explains how changes in performance can help your team spot these situations earlier. Use the information to support a better service decision.
How Monaire sees it
A facilities manager needs more than a red dot beside a high-use store. Monaire’s role is to help connect that concern to a schedule to fix, a manager to call or a unit to investigate.
A repair ticket is closed, but the problem remains
A closed work order can disappear from the facilities team’s daily view while the unit continues to struggle. If the same store calls again, the team may start from scratch.
Keep the original complaint, service findings and follow-up together. Check whether the unit performs properly during the conditions that caused the issue. A comfortable morning may not answer a problem that appears every afternoon.
If it is too soon to tell, mark the check as pending. If the problem is still there, keep it open for investigation. The HVAC repair verification guide shows how to make those outcomes clear.
This helps energy management too. You cannot assume the waste associated with a struggling unit ended on the date someone closed its ticket.
Settings that no longer fit the way a site operates
A store changes its hours, rearranges its use of space or replaces equipment. The old settings remain. They may have been correct once and now need review.
Add a settings check to the follow-up for major operating changes. Ask the site manager what is different and confirm that the facilities record reflects it. When new locations join the portfolio, do not assume the inherited schedule is suitable.
Problem found | Person or team to involve |
|---|---|
Hours or site activity have changed | Store operations and the schedule owner |
A temporary setting has become permanent | The person who made the override and facilities |
A unit cannot keep up | The service team, with recent operating history |
Energy use changed but records are incomplete | The person responsible for the energy report |
Use the seven checks to turn a high-use site into a short work list. Energy management systems for commercial buildings should help your team find and follow up on this work, rather than simply add another monthly chart.
After making changes, check comfort and compare energy use over suitable periods. The portfolio energy management guide explains the measurement. To explore the HVAC opportunities in your own portfolio, start with Monaire’s energy-management approach and bring a few sites that keep appearing on your concern list.
These seven checks turn commercial energy management into work your facilities team can assign and verify. Monaire helps locate the schedule errors, overrides and struggling units behind unnecessary HVAC use across your sites.
Does long HVAC runtime always mean wasted energy?
The placeholder answer.
Should we turn HVAC off whenever a store is closed?
The placeholder answer.
Can a lower setpoint fix slow cooling?
The placeholder answer.
How do we know a schedule change saved energy?
The placeholder answer.
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