Energy audits: which recommendations actually paid back?

We commissioned an energy audit for our cold storage warehouse and received a list of twenty-three recommendations, from LED lighting to variable speed drives and a new refrigeration control strategy. The total investment is far beyond our budget for this year.

We ranked the measures by payback time and practical disruption, and started with door seals, fast-acting doors and smarter defrost cycles. Those alone cut consumption by about eleven percent in the first quarter. For those who acted on audit reports, which measures delivered the savings promised, and which disappointed?