Restaurant Reduces Electricity 31% Within One Year “Energy is not my number one priority,” says Peter Crabtree, owner of the local restaurant Chocmo. “Growing and running my business is.” But a year ago with the expertise of Distributed Energy Management (DEM), Crabtree embraced Utility Money Management and opened what is called a Utility Reinvestment Account (URA). This rational business approach lets him: ● Clearly see how much he spends on utilities ● Understand effective or wasteful practices ● Identify free incentives and rebates to leverage his money up to 70% ● Lay out a step-by-step plan to shift wasted energy dollars to lasting efficiency improvement With the URA, Crabtree concurrently pays all his monthly bills with one check through automated bill pay while building a set aside fund for planned retrofit improvements. This helps him better manage cash flow in less time while DEM provides Crabtree a monthly report of bills paid and funds accumulated for identified projects. DEM also factors in available project incentives and rebates to leverage savings and greatly speed time to implementation. With the transparency Utility Money Management provides, Crabtree is now motivated to manage energy as a valued resource and has information to better run his business. The result, within one year Chocmo achieved a 31% reduction in electricity bills while growing revenues near 30% at the same time. Now even more money is being saved into my URA for business improvements. As Crabtree says, “Good business decisions are ones that reduce costs and increase sales in the long run. As long as I am trying to improve my business, there will always be opportunities to reduce energy costs.”