By : Dale Rodebaugh
Source : http://durangoherald.com
Category : Small Business Grant
Updating and upgrading lighting systems has considerable impact on the environment and the bottom line, three La Plata Electric Association representatives told a gathering of 80 Durango businesspeople Wednesday.
Mark Schwantes, manager of corporate services, and project specialists Ray Pierotti and Sue Maxwell spoke at the monthly Green Business Roundtable lunch at the Strater Hotel.
In 2010, LPEA developed a lighting retrofit program to help small businesses make informed decisions about how to save on energy costs.
Lighting represents about 30 percent of electricity costs for small businesses, and in relatively remote areas such as Southwest Colorado, those businesses have limited economic resources, the speakers said.
Response by churches, a nonprofit, a grocery store, a hotel and restaurants was tremendous, they said. They pointed to results:
Energy consulation to more than 50 businesses.
Lighting retrofits implemented by 17 businesses.
Investment of $100,000 in retrofitting.
Projects provided a saving of 585,000 kilowatt hours of energy, electric bill savings of $60,000 and retrofit rebates of $66,000.
LPEA and its supplier, Tri-State Generation and Transmission, contributed $50,000 to the city of Durango for light-emitting-diode bulbs to retrofit street lights.
In 2011, LPEA was the only electric cooperative in Colorado to request – and was awarded – a Governor’s Energy Office grant to help businesses implement energy-efficient measures.
The energy office’s grant, funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (stimulus money), is called the Main Street Efficiency Initiative Rebate Program.
In the first nine months of 2011, LPEA offered education programs to 115 customers and saw 40 businesses and six local governments retrofit their buildings.
The reduction in energy use totaled 422,300 kilowatt hours, with electric bill savings of $42,230 and $74,000 in rebates.
LPEA didn’t forget itself. Retrofitting at the utility’s main Durango office in 2010 reduced energy consumption to 1.108 million kilowatt hours from the four-year average, 2006-09, of 1.234 million.
It was a savings on investment of 39 percent and will pay for itself in 2½ years.
In retrofitting projects, LPEA has worked with 100 small business and building owners, a dozen electricians or electrical contractors, lighting industry manufacturers, local governments, school districts, the Environmental Protection Agency and Fort Lewis College.
“There are a lot of reasons to change bulbs,” Pierotti said. “A lot of old bulbs are going away.”
The LED bulbs are the future of lighting, Pierotti said. By 2020, LED bulbs will replace 20 coal-fired power plants, he said.
Source : http://durangoherald.com/article/20111215/NEWS06/712159985/-1/s
Source : http://durangoherald.com
Category : Small Business Grant
Updating and upgrading lighting systems has considerable impact on the environment and the bottom line, three La Plata Electric Association representatives told a gathering of 80 Durango businesspeople Wednesday.
Mark Schwantes, manager of corporate services, and project specialists Ray Pierotti and Sue Maxwell spoke at the monthly Green Business Roundtable lunch at the Strater Hotel.
In 2010, LPEA developed a lighting retrofit program to help small businesses make informed decisions about how to save on energy costs.
Lighting represents about 30 percent of electricity costs for small businesses, and in relatively remote areas such as Southwest Colorado, those businesses have limited economic resources, the speakers said.
Response by churches, a nonprofit, a grocery store, a hotel and restaurants was tremendous, they said. They pointed to results:
Energy consulation to more than 50 businesses.
Lighting retrofits implemented by 17 businesses.
Investment of $100,000 in retrofitting.
Projects provided a saving of 585,000 kilowatt hours of energy, electric bill savings of $60,000 and retrofit rebates of $66,000.
LPEA and its supplier, Tri-State Generation and Transmission, contributed $50,000 to the city of Durango for light-emitting-diode bulbs to retrofit street lights.
In 2011, LPEA was the only electric cooperative in Colorado to request – and was awarded – a Governor’s Energy Office grant to help businesses implement energy-efficient measures.
The energy office’s grant, funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (stimulus money), is called the Main Street Efficiency Initiative Rebate Program.
In the first nine months of 2011, LPEA offered education programs to 115 customers and saw 40 businesses and six local governments retrofit their buildings.
The reduction in energy use totaled 422,300 kilowatt hours, with electric bill savings of $42,230 and $74,000 in rebates.
LPEA didn’t forget itself. Retrofitting at the utility’s main Durango office in 2010 reduced energy consumption to 1.108 million kilowatt hours from the four-year average, 2006-09, of 1.234 million.
It was a savings on investment of 39 percent and will pay for itself in 2½ years.
In retrofitting projects, LPEA has worked with 100 small business and building owners, a dozen electricians or electrical contractors, lighting industry manufacturers, local governments, school districts, the Environmental Protection Agency and Fort Lewis College.
“There are a lot of reasons to change bulbs,” Pierotti said. “A lot of old bulbs are going away.”
The LED bulbs are the future of lighting, Pierotti said. By 2020, LED bulbs will replace 20 coal-fired power plants, he said.
Source : http://durangoherald.com/article/20111215/NEWS06/712159985/-1/s
