Energy-Saving Lifts

Introducing energy-efficient lift technology can help your business use up to 80% less electricity than more traditional lifts. This is not only great news for your energy efficiency and carbon footprint, but it’s also great for your wallet.

At Sheridan Lifts, our team of highly trained engineers are experienced in lift installation all over the UK. Energy-efficient lifts are a great way to reduce your energy usage. They not only help to make sure your business is compliant with all relevant legislation, both now and in the future, but they can also reduce your monthly energy consumption significantly.

When you think about the amount of energy required to run a standard hydraulic lift, there’s a lot to consider: The energy it uses to transport people from floor to floor, to light the lift’s interior and the button panel, to open the doors and even the energy used when the lift is in standby mode all take a toll. For many commercial buildings, having a lift installed is a sheer necessity – for disabled access or ease of movement of heavy goods, for example – so it’s vital you actively consider the installation of a lift that will be less demanding on energy, and therefore on your long-term outgoings. At Sheridan Lifts, we have made it our mission to provide the most energy-efficient lifts on the UK market – all of which are in line with BREEAM requirements. We carry out traffic analysis to ensure standards are kept and we can stay true to supplying high-performance lifts with the lowest energy impact.

Energy efficiency simply means using less energy to perform the same task and, therefore, reducing or even eliminating energy waste. Elevator efficiency is essentially the process of making changes to your lift system in order to have it operate without consuming as much energy. This can be anything from changing the lighting to LED lighting, to completely changing the lift’s inner hardware to reduce the amount of energy consumed. To find out how our expert lift technicians can help, visit our Lift Refurbishment section.

The drive system of a lift has been found to have the highest impact on energy efficiency. There are two main categories of lift equipment: traction lift and hydraulic lift. From an energy performance point of view, a traction lift is more energy efficient than a hydraulic lift system.

Regenerative lifts represent one of the most significant modern innovations in lift technology. These lifts are classed as energy-efficient due to their design – when in use, the drives installed in these lifts capture the heat generated by the lift in motion and convert it into reusable energy. For example, when a regenerative lift goes up with a light load and down with a heavier load, the system will generate more power than it uses. A traditional lift, on the other hand, wastes this lift-generated energy as, rather than having a system that converts it, the excess power is instead lost as heat. This effectively leads to substantial amounts of energy being underutilised over the lifespan of a traditional elevator.

As well as high energy usage, some lifts have additional impacts on the environment. Traditional hydraulic elevators, for example, require oil to maintain smooth-functioning capabilities. If this oil permeates water sources, it can become an environmental hazard. Incandescent lights, often found in older lifts, have a much shorter life span than LED lighting has and use much more energy.