As power costs rise, energy optimization is having a moment

U.S. businesses are entering a new energy reality. As demand climbs, driven by reindustrialization, electrification, and the rapid build-out of data centers, reliability is increasingly challenged by extreme weather and capacity constraints. The result? Electricity bills are rising faster than at any time in the past 15 years, leading to growing scrutiny of energy spend.  

Amid the uncertainty, one lever stands out for its immediacy and practicality: energy optimization. Reframing energy from an uncontrollable cost to a managed performance variable, energy optimization (EO) yields three outcomes that matter to executives.  

Firstly, EO reduces operating expenses quickly, through targeted, common-sense changes.  

Secondly, it dampens exposure to price volatility by reshaping when and how you consume — particularly during the most expensive hours.  

And thirdly, it unlocks capacity from existing equipment, allowing operations to grow or to ride out grid constraints without heavy capital outlays. 

"Energy optimization grew out of a simple idea,” says Simon Horton, Trio’s Managing Director of Energy Optimization and Electrification. “Make equipment and processes more efficient so facilities use less energy.” 

Horton explains that a rapid energy optimization program can enable your business to bank early savings and build momentum.  

But how do you begin that process? 

From audit to roadmap 

The starting point of any EO process is to establish a baseline. Most organizations don’t need an encyclopedic audit to find meaningful savings; they just need to focus on where energy is going and where it is being wasted. Twelve months of bills will reveal demand spikes and spend patterns. Following that, a walk through the plant with operators exposes weak links: equipment running when it’s not needed, spaces being conditioned beyond necessity, ventilation and temperature setpoints drifting from minimum viable levels. EO is not about technology first: it’s about practices, governance, and accountability. 

From there, momentum matters. Horton says organizations that succeed treat the first 90 days as a sprint: they stand up a small, cross-functional steering group with a single accountable owner, agree to a handful of metrics everyone can understand, and put discipline around scheduling and setpoints.  

The EO hierarchy 

A pragmatic hierarchy of energy optimization begins with the cheapest wins and builds toward transformational change. As Horton puts it: "We break energy conservation measures into low- or no‑cost actions you can implement immediately and capital projects with quantified long‑term savings." 

Many businesses can harvest immediate savings by tightening building schedules and setpoints so systems run only when they’re needed. Idle loads can be eliminated by automating plug-load shutdowns and enabling sleep modes. Routine maintenance — cleaning coils and filters, fixing compressed air and steam leaks — and basic control tuning to prevent simultaneous heating and cooling can deliver rapid, low-cost reductions. 

With the fundamentals in place, the next level of EO concerns modest retrofits that pay back within months: this could involve upgrading to LED lighting paired with occupancy and daylight controls; sealing drafts and patching insulation; adding smart thermostats; or reclaiming simple waste heat. 

Then there are the system-level upgrades with multi-year paybacks. An assessment might recommend expanding building automation and analytics, including fault detection, to lock in and sustain savings; rightsizing and replacing motors with high-efficiency models; and pursuing advanced heat recovery methods. 

Finally, there are capital-intensive transformations: modernizing HVAC plants with high-efficiency chillers, boilers, and heat pumps; adding thermal storage; electrifying heat and fleets; and deploying onsite solar and batteries with demand response.  

This hierarchy of action captures fast savings first, funds deeper upgrades, and builds the data and controls discipline required for durable, larger-scale reductions. The energy story becomes a business story — about cost control, reliability, and productivity — rather than a technical crusade.  

And the first bill that shows a fall in energy spend will be far more persuasive than any slide deck. 

A case in point 

Trio recently completed an energy optimization audit for a U.S. household name, and the findings offer a typical snapshot of the books an EO program can offer. 

In this instance, the client, a multi-site manufacturer, faced rising power prices and capacity constraints across their operations. Reframing their decarbonization drive as a cost and resilience program, they began with a 90-day sprint, focusing on scheduling discipline, minimum viable setpoints, and eliminating obvious waste. They avoided technology for technology’s sake, insisting on vendor-neutral bids and business cases with clear paybacks.  

Within 12 months, the manufacturer carved six figures from their energy spend, reduced exposure to peak charges, and freed capacity in a constrained plant — setting up a second wave of investments that stood on their own merits. 

Making culture work for you 

In the end, it’s not technology that will keep bills down — it’s people and routines. By engaging plant managers and frontline teams early, framing goals in terms, such as cost control and productivity, and recognizing behaviors that reduce waste, all serve to hardwire energy optimization into day-to-day operations. Institutionalizing seasonal retuning and quarterly reviews so that practices adapt to changes in production and weather means that EO, rather than being a one-off project, becomes an operating discipline. 

The lessons are clear: In a pricier, more volatile power era, the fastest, least risky way to protect margins is to optimize what you already control. Regardless of the industry, a firm can start with no or lowcost interventions to build belief and momentum, and scale into capital projects where returns are tight and savings durable. Design around constraints, measure diligently, and make the practices part of the culture. Take these steps, and energy shifts from a rising bill to a managed advantage — not years from now, but today.