Energy saving projects focus on measureabl

Energy saving projects focus on measureable results
Businesses throughout Connecticut are finding innovative ways to reduce their carbon footprint while saving money on energy expenditures. Many are taking advantage of incentives offered by the Connecticut Energy Efficiency Fund — a Peter Staye, associate director of utilities at Wesleyan University in Middletown, explains an energy monitoring display to Anna Sears, a freshman.partnership between the state’s utility companies designed to help businesses, homeowners and government entities save energy — to implement greener technologies and encourage others to think more carefully about their own energy use.

From solar panels at Webster Bank to a culture change at Wesleyan University, programs are showing measureable results. Here’s a look at a few:


Culture change

Since 2005, Wesleyan University has invested more than $6.5 million in a variety of measures on its 360-acre Middletown campus. The university began by focusing on “the traditional stuff” and now has moved into more innovative measures, said Peter Staye, Wesleyan’s associate director of utilities.

Lighting has been retrofitted with more energy-efficient options, occupancy sensors have been installed, and new management software automatically powers down computers and monitors during the night. The heating and cooling system in the Exley Science Center has been converted to an energy-efficient air volume system with computer-based temperature controls, and the Freeman Athletic Center now injects ozone into the water used by its laundry service, enabling the use of cold water for all laundry while cleaning more efficiently and fighting bacteria.

Through all its combined projects, Wesleyan has reduced energy use by about 22 percent since 2005, but the focus is now shifting to a more challenging initiative, but one with significantly greater potential for savings — changing the culture of energy use on campus.

“Not that long ago, energy was abundant and cheap. Now it’s neither, but there is still the feeling that everyone should have their own refrigerator and coffee machine and so on,” Staye said. Although those conveniences are still allowed, the school has mounted an effort to make students, staff and faculty more aware of the amount of energy they consume.

Wesleyan’s large dorms now have monitors that display information on how much energy is being used. Each month, all dorms compete with each other to achieve the greatest reductions, and they compete with themselves to achieve better numbers than the previous month. Regular reports track energy use in all campus buildings and a Sustainability Advisory Group comprised of students, faculty and staff is working to develop a campus-wide action plan and research additional measures for reducing the school’s impact on the environment.

Effecting culture change in the face of long-held habits and assumptions is “a long haul and we do encounter some resistance from time to time, but we try to take baby steps and never go back,” Staye said. “General concern for the environment is becoming more profound every day, and there is far more opportunity in changing our culture than in any other measures we could take.”


Solar panels

Waterbury-based Webster Bank has also entered the green revolution by installing solar panels on the roof of its New Britain office facility. The building houses 325 employees and includes back-office functions such as human resources and training as well as serving commercial banking customers.

The panels, which have been placed on one-third of the roof on the building’s south side, are expected to produce more than two million kilowatt hours of electricity over the next 25 years, according to Mark Johnson, assistant vice president and manager of corporate real estate. That’s enough energy to supply more than seven homes with electricity for 25 years and the carbon-reduction equivalent of taking more than 11 passenger vehicles off the road each year.

To help raise employees’ awareness of environmental issues, Webster has placed a video display in the building’s lobby showing real-time energy generation from the solar panels along with other information on energy savings.

The decision to go solar also meant putting a new roof on the building, and Webster used the opportunity to do some major recycling. The old roof was a ballasted system using small stones to hold the roofing components in place, so when the stones were removed, they were given to a local landscaper, Johnson said.


Energy conservation

The Massachusetts-based Stop & Shop grocery chain has begun taking steps to reduce energy at its 217 stores, including 93 in Connecticut, by installing energy-efficient lighting and new motors for its freezers.

The project, which is being rolled out as time and budgets allow, also enables the company to take advantage of utility rebates and reduce maintenance expenses, according to Mark Macomber, energy project manager for Ahold USA, Stop & Shop’s parent company.

In 2010, Stop & Shop retrofitted 20 Connecticut stores with LED track lighting throughout the facilities, and the lights will be installed in another 24 stores this year, resulting in a 40 percent reduction in energy use. Fluorescent lights in frozen food cases are also being replaced with LED lighting. Five Connecticut locations are slated to be completed this year, which will bring the total number of retrofittings to 46. Also by the end of 2011, 86 Connecticut stores will have new electronically-commutated motors in its freezers and walk-in coolers, cutting previous energy usage in half.

In addition, solar energy panels have been installed at eight Stop & Shop stores, including the one in Fairfield, three in Massachusetts and four in New Jersey, netting a 9 percent reduction in electricity use, Macomber said.

“We’re anxious to do more solar projects in the future, and also install LED lighting in our parking lots,” he said. “Right now, it’s quite expensive, so we’ll do that once the costs come down.”

Through programs supported by the Connecticut Energy Efficiency Fund in partnership with Connecticut Light and Power, Stop and Shop expects to save nearly 30 million kilowatts and avoid more than 32 million pounds of carbon dioxide over the life of the measures. That’s enough to provide more than 3,500 homes with electricity for a year, according to figures provided by CL&P.