Commercial kitchens found in restaurants, hotels, hospitals, food kiosk and food businesses are the top energy consumers according to surveys done by several organizations. With Electricity charges keeps changing and more importantly increasing year after year. It is the best practice to conserve the energy use in your commercial kitchen. Which not only helps keep your electricity bills in budget but also contributes to environment. As per a credible source here are some statistics on Electricity use and Gas usage:
Refrigeration consumes almost 32.2% of Electricity, followed by Lighting at 19.4%. Cooling occupies 13% of energy consumption, ventilation at 11.3%. And the remaining 24.2% include cooking, heating, water heating, computer, office use and miscellaneous. The most interesting part is many commercial kitchen business owners are using only 6.2% electricity for cooking.
When we looked at Gas consumption, Cooking uses 45% energy, Water Heating 27.5%,Heating at 26.8%,Miscellaneous at 0.5% and cooling at 0.3%. Those were the statistics, and the solution for efficiently conserving energy is to get regular maintenance. You may ask Okay! I thought maintenance means longevity of equipment, what it has to do with energy conservation. If you are effectively doing maintenance of your equipment they will perform every time as they were like new equipment. This means you can set them to turnoff and watch them for optimal settings most of the time. Food preparation equipment: Ovens, Fryers, Boilers, Burners all use an energy right? By maintaining them regularly you can make sure them to use only when needed and save a lot of energy at no Cost
Turn off Equipment at right time: It is the best practice to use the equipment only when needed based on its functionality. Turning on the equipment all the day only brings you hefty amount of bill, not customers. So use them wisely. Also, keeping the equipment running all the time makes it inefficient over the time. You may have observed refrigerators are the most electricity consuming equipment in your kitchen. To keep the electricity bills low make sure you keep these in your maintenance list. Ensure cool air is not leaking Always check for gasket, check and replace if it is worn out. Make sure the doors are aligned well, properly closing and opening. Clean refrigerators coils regularly.
The same checklist applies to your air conditioning and cooling equipment as well.
As a Commercial Kitchens owner you have to deal with lots of gas bills, while for cooking use we cannot avoid using gas. We can conserve gas use in water heaters, Gas broilers and Dishwashers. Here are few check points to keep in mind to conserve Gas and save bills. Use proper water heater settings and make sure that heat distribution system is leak free. Use proper dishwasher set points and modes of operation. Check your sprayers regularly, and keep them in maintenance list.