How Can You Decrease Your Carbon Footprint?

You may have heard the phrase “carbon footprint” and that it’s something you should work to decrease. But what is a carbon footprint, and how can you reduce it? Let’s explore the definition of your carbon footprint along with clean energy solutions that can decrease it for your facility.

This blog covers the following topics:

• Defining Your Carbon Footprint
  
• How Your Carbon Footprint Affects the Environment
  
• How to Improve Energy Efficiency in Your Building
  
• Energy Management Systems
  
• Solar Energy
  
• LED Lighting
  

Defining Your Carbon Footprint

The phrase “carbon footprint” is commonly used in the clean energy industry to describe how much carbon a business or organization emits into the environment, according to the Global Footprint Network. Your carbon footprint measures and examines how your carbon emissions affect the surrounding environment, especially if that environment’s atmosphere does not have the biocapacity to absorb those emissions. So, your building’s carbon footprint is the amount of carbon emissions it sends into the surrounding atmosphere and how it impacts that atmosphere and environment. Greenhouse gas emissions can increase your carbon footprint, and they can have significant environmental consequences.

How Does Your Carbon Footprint Affect Your Facility?

So how does your carbon footprint affect the environment around your building? High carbon emissions raise your energy costs, so reducing your carbon emissions is good for your business. When you reduce emissions, you reduce overall energy consumption and contain energy costs which positively impact your business’s bottom line.

Assess Your Carbon Footprint Today With Helios

Connect with us today to learn more about your carbon footprint, current energy consumption, and how we can help you improve both!

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How to Improve Energy Efficiency in Your Building

So how can you reduce your carbon emissions and energy costs? You can take advantage of Helios Energy’s our TotalE™ Approach to implement energy efficiency technologies. These technologies include LED lighting, smart transformers, energy management systems, or HVAC controls. First, we perform audits and analyses to help identify your facility’s current energy consumption levels. Second, we work with you to set up energy-efficient technologies of choice to reduce energy consumption levels by up to 50%. Third, we help you explore right-sized clean energy options for your facility’s new, lower energy consumption levels, such as solar and wind energy solutions, alongside clean energy storage options.

Energy Management Systems

An energy management system offers automated control over your lighting and air conditioning, in addition to other systems in your building. This type of system is also known as a building management system. It monitors your energy systems’ operations 24/7, reduces energy consumption when your facility is unoccupied, and provides summaries of your energy usage, among many other features. When you install an energy management system, you can control all your building’s energy systems from a centralized web portal. This portal has apps you can use on mobile devices so you can monitor and manage your building’s energy systems, no matter where you are. 

The energy management systems we install provide you with the opportunity to take control of your energy consumption and identify where you’re wasting energy. You can use these systems to determine, with Helios Energy™ as your partner, to implement energy efficient solutions to reduce your energy consumption and your carbon footprint.

Solar Energy

Solar panels reduce your carbon footprint by generating electricity that you’ve traditionally gotten from burning fossil fuels. The panels capture the photons in sunlight and excite the kinetic energy in them to generate electricity as a direct current. The energy system’s inverter then changes that direct current into an alternating current, which powers your building. Unlike fossil fuels, solar panels do not burn anything to generate electricity, so no harmful carbon emissions are generated that could have negatively impacted the environment around your building.

Helios installs three main types of solar panel systems: rooftop solar systems, ground-mounted systems, and solar carports. These solar panel systems can improve your facility operations in multiple ways as they reduce your carbon footprint. These solar solutions improve your facility while reducing carbon emissions.

LED Lighting

LED lighting systems can dramatically reduce your energy consumption and costs. How is this possible? Although Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are the size of a fleck of pepper, they emit light in a certain direction, thereby operating without the diffusers and reflectors that traditional light sources use to trap and distribute light. In addition, LEDs emit very little heat, thereby reducing the temperature of the environment in which they are installed. 

Where in your facility should you install LED lighting? LED lighting systems brighten parking lots during nighttime hours, and make store aisles brighter and clearer so customers can find the products they need more easily. LED light fixtures and systems illuminate warehouses and factories so workers can complete their tasks safely. LED lighting can even brighten a sports arena or set the mood for a concert venue. LED lighting doesn’t contribute to carbon emissions the way traditional lighting systems do, so they are safe and have many flexible uses.

Decrease Your Carbon Footprint With Helios Energy

Now that we’ve discussed your carbon footprint and how it affects the environment, Helios Energy™ is ready to help you reduce emissions at your facility. No matter what your energy needs are, we can develop a solution to meet them. We partner with you to audit your energy systems and determine how clean energy and energy efficiency technologies can improve them. If you’re ready to reduce your carbon footprint and your greenhouse gas emissions, reach out to Helios Energy™ today.