The desire of most enterprises to reduce their own costs for paying for energy resources leads to an increase in interest in energy audits. An energy audit allows you to develop recommendations for reducing energy consumption and significantly reduce costs. Therefore, the business idea of making money on energy audits has every chance of being in demand for the coming years. Energy audit as a business is also suitable for start-up entrepreneurs, since it does not require too much investment, but it places high demands on the professionalism of specialists.
To create your own energy auditing company, it is necessary to conduct a preliminary market research to make sure that there is no strong competition in the region. In the field of energy audit, the competition is not too strong yet, and allows us to count on the timely occupation of our own niche in the market. However, the development of interest in this line of business entails the creation of an increasing number of enterprises, so market research is an absolutely necessary part of creating a business. After making sure that there is no strong competition, you can proceed to the legal preparation of the creation of a company.
It should be noted that only members of a self-regulatory organization (SRO) have the right to conduct an energy audit.
Therefore, a new company must inevitably become a member of the SRO by submitting documents for entry and paying an entry fee. To draw up documents, you must first register a company in the form of a legal entity, as well as train at least 4 specialists capable of conducting a survey. Training of specialists will cost about 60,000 rubles. The entrance fee to a self-regulatory organization today is between 15,000 and 50,000 dollars.
Conducting an energy audit consists of:
- in the inspection of buildings and objects of the customer,
- thermal imaging,
- data processing and drawing up an energy passport and a technical report,
- transfer of documentation to the SRO for examination and registration.
To conduct an energy audit survey, special equipment and instruments are required, such as a thermal imager, thickness gauge, lux meter, special thermometer, pyrometer, various counters, and so on.
Conducting an energy audit can be complex or selective, depending on what conditions are provided for in the contract with the customer.
A number of energy audit stages include:
- documentary and technical energy inspection,
- quality results,
- subsequent approval of the survey results.
The result of the energy audit should be the issuance of an energy passport, the preparation of a technical report, the development of an energy saving program, and recommendations for improving energy efficiency. Often, customers require a business plan to eliminate unjustified energy losses.
The initial cost of setting up an energy auditing company is about $1 million. This includes the cost of technological equipment, the cost of legal registration of the company, employee training, and the purchase of software. At the first stage, an energy audit firm can do without its own office, however, in order to increase customer confidence, it is desirable to open such an office. The cost of opening an office can also be around half a million dollars.
In current expenses, in addition to rent and salaries of employees, transportation costs, and so on, it is necessary to provide for the costs of paying for the examination of energy passports by SROs.
The profitability of the energy audit business ranges from 10 to 35%.
As a rule, the cost of an energy audit is half of the monthly costs of the enterprise for the purchase of various types of energy. In the case of a survey of a large enterprise, these amounts can be hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars. With the maximum load of the energy audit firm with orders, you can quickly bring the company to profitability and receive good profits in the future.
Naturally, in order to optimize activities from the first days of the company’s existence, it is necessary to be guided by a business plan , which our specialists can prepare at your request.