Restaurants can consume a lot of energy as many appliances are used during the food preparation process. Moreover, a lot of power is needed for heating and lighting to ensure that customers have an enjoyable visit. Each year in the UK, the catering industry as a whole spends £400 million on energy and uses around 20,000 million kWh. Keep reading to find out how much energy an average individual restaurant uses every year. From this guide, you can also find out how to improve your restaurant’s energy efficiency.
Amount of electricity used by a restaurant
How much electricity a restaurant uses depends on its size and the type of appliances used. Nevertheless, you have to be prepared for the fact that restaurants use much more electricity than small and medium-sized businesses. In most restaurants, electricity is used in several areas:
| an aspect of running a restaurant | percentage of total electricity usage |
| Refrigeration | 43% |
| Cooking | 14% |
| Ventilation | 12% |
| Cooling | 11% |
| Lighting | 6% |
| Other | 14% |
When it comes to the average daily electricity consumption, refrigeration uses around 70 kWh, grills 37 kWh and ovens around 35 kWh. That said, the more fridges, freezers, grills, and ovens you have, the higher your energy consumption will be.
Amount of gas used by a restaurant
The primary use of gas in most restaurants is for cooking. Nevertheless, just like most businesses gas is also used for central heating and water heating. The breakdown of the restaurant’s average gas usage is:
| what gas is used for in a restaurant | percentage of total gas usage |
| Cooking | 67% |
| Heating | 15% |
| Water Heating | 18% |
How to calculate energy rates for a restaurant?
How much you will pay for energy depends on several things. That includes:
- The credit rating of your business
- The size of your restaurant
- The location of your restaurant
- The type of your business
- The sector you operate in
In addition to costs that reflect on your energy consumption, your energy bill covers a few other things:
- Wholesale costs – how much your supplier pays for energy that they then supply to you
- Network costs – how much your supplier pays for delivering energy to where your restaurant is located
- Taxes – you will need to pay VAT, at either 20% or 5% – depending on how much energy you use, as well as CCL if your restaurant uses more than 33 kWh of electricity and more than 145 kWh of gas per day
- Operating costs – how much your supplier pays to operate your account
- Environmental costs – how much suppliers need to contribute to governmental programmes aiming to protect the environment
How much an average restaurant pays for electricity each year?
As has been indicated by this guide already, it is difficult to state exactly how much energy a restaurant will use each year because each business is different. Nevertheless, for the purpose of providing you with an average amount, a restaurant can be compared to a large business.
The average annual electricity usage of a large business is 50,000 kWh. Assuming that the average price per kWh is 14.3p, it will need to pay £7,234 for the annual electricity bill.
The graphic below illustrates how much, on average, it costs a restaurant to cook certain meals.
How to make your restaurant more energy efficient?
Even though a restaurant will always require a lot of energy to operate effectively, there are several things you can do to improve its energy efficiency. If you follow these practices, you can save up to 20% on energy bills.
- Lighting
- Replace traditional light bulbs with LED bulbs and install fluorescent tubes.
- Dim the lights then there is a lot of natural light.
- Turn off lights in unoccupied rooms.
- Install movement sensors and time switches.
- Heating
- Install smart thermostats.
- Reduce the temperature by 1°C.
- Only use air-conditioning when needed.
- Service the ventilation system regularly.
- Install double-glazed windows.
- Properly insulate walls and roof.
- Refrigeration
- Install fridges and freezers away from hobs and hot ovens.
- Only open fridge doors when needed.
- Make sure all the seals are in place.
- Defrost and clean fridges and freezers regularly.
- Check the energy rating of cooling equipment before you purchase it.
- Water management
- Insulate hot water pipes.
- Install spray water taps.
- Quickly fix leaking taps.
- Keep water at 60°C
- Equipment
- Maintain all the appliances regularly.
- Only buy equipment with a good energy-efficiency rating.
- Replace gas or electric hobs with induction ones.
- Switch off cooking equipment at the end of the day.
Introducing these changes can help you pay less for energy bills and be more environmentally-friendly. Nowadays, having a low carbon footprint and being green is something many customers visiting your business care about. All these solutions are easy to implement and will undoubtedly have a positive impact on your restaurant’s performance.
You should try to encourage all employees to change their energy consumption habits. Make sure they turn off lights when there is no one in the room, and switch off equipment when they leave the restaurant’s premises at the end of a working day. If the whole team works together, you will soon notice that your restaurant uses much less energy than before.