We all like to enjoy a hot beverage upon arriving at work or on a tea break, but how much electricity does it actually take to make a hot tea or coffee? At Belgravia Leisure’s Head Office in Bayswater Victoria, it was identified by Belgravia Leisure’s ‘Green Team’ that there were water boilers plugged in and operating 24/7.
This resulted in unnecessarily boiling water in the middle of the night and on weekends when the office was vacant, increasing power consumption and electricity bills.
To resolve the issue in an effort to be more sustainable and save money, portable 24/7 timers were purchased and installed in November 2021, at the cost of $8 each to control the operating hours of these boilers. This resulted in a reduction from 168 hours per week to 60 hours (five days of 7 am – 7 pm operation only). This has reduced power consumption with a saving of $395 per annum. It is also the equivalent of 5.5 tonnes of carbon emissions saved from going into our atmosphere.
With all change processes, things don’t always go to plan, with one of the tea room 24/7 timers being removed so that staff who stayed later or arrived early could still make their coffees. However, after a bit of staff education and tweaking of the operating hours, the 24/7 timer was reinstated and continued to save the organisation money and the environment on greenhouse gas emissions – a win for all.
