apperson energy management

                     LOCALS WHO HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT

This column is about energy conservation, and trying to convince people who are possibly “undecided” that they really can do a DIY project, or convince them that the rewards are enough to where they can actually hire someone else to do the deed. We try to do that by taking a project from start to finish to show how easy it can be done, or to at least give them the nomenclature to be able to discuss the project with a contractor. One of the most successful motivators can be actual case studies, where we go over real projects right here in your own back yard. It seems to mean more if we can refer to a project that belongs to a neighbor or a business just down the street. With that in mind I feel we should shine the spotlight on a worthy project every so often.

                                         SHOPPING CENTER CONVERSION

One such project which we talked about here a few months back was the total lighting conversion of the Pear Tree Shopping Center. This is the shopping center that starts with the Lucky food store on Perkins behind Savings Bank and goes all the way across Orchard to encompass JCPenny’s. The owners decided to convert all the older style lighting, not just inside the stores, but all the outside walkway lighting and all the parking lot lighting. All were upgraded from the old T-12 style to the new T-8 style fluorescent tubes (this includes changing the ballast from magnetic to electronic), and the parking lot pole fixtures were changed from 450 watt metal halide to 120w induction lamps. All walkway lighting was also changed to induction, resulting in similar wattage reductions. I received a letter from the property management company to say that they’ve had the new lights in long enough to get several months of billing to compare. In looking at the same months last year so far they are realizing over 50% reduction in month to month year to year comparison. And when you are talking about the number of fixtures a shopping center has and the length of time those lights must be on, you are talking about savings well into the four figure range per month. The owners of Pear Tree did this mostly out of their own pocket with help from the City of Ukiah commercial lighting rebate program, which paid over half of the cost of the project. The owners are on target to recoup their monetary investment in under two years.

Another local business that went all-in with lighting was Ukiah Ford Lincoln Mercury. The owner, Huxley Richardson, not only had the showroom lighting upgraded, but also the mechanics bays, the detail shop, the paint shop, and in addition, converted all the parking lot lighting to induction also. All lighting at Ukiah Ford is now energy efficient.

Other local business taking advantage of Ukiah’s generous commercial lighting rebate are Schats Bakery, Curry’s Furniture, Mendocino Farm Supply, Plaza Del Sol office complex, Farmer Bros. Autobody, and Roundtree Glass, as well as another six or eight in progress.

                                          UKIAH’S GREEN MOTEL

We have one more establishment to mention and this business owner took the concept to a whole other level. This guy just likes to be “green” and won’t stop until there is nothing left to do. I’m referring to the Super 8 Hotel and its owner Raakesh Patel, located on Orchard at Gobbi St. Raakesh started greening up his motel long before it was fashionable, or supported by utility rebates. Most of what he has done was on his own dime. He has completely changed all the lighting in the facility to fluorescent, installed energy efficient heat pumps for heating and cooling, installed new dual pane windows, put programmable timers on his outside lighting and converted all the machinery like ice machines, printers, copiers and all office equipment to Energy Star compliant products. He even went so far as to use all bio-degradable serving ware in the dining room and has a linen reuse program. His most recent project was to change out the last of the inefficient outside area lighting by converting all 21 of his 175 watt metal halide “wall packs” mounted on the sides of the building, to 40 watt induction.  On this last lighting conversion project he did have the City of Ukiah as a partner with their rebate program. But the very latest thing on Mr. Patel’s list is really cool. He has not only set aside several parking places for low emission vehicles, he also just installed a charging station for electric vehicles (you can see a picture of it at www.super8ukiah.com).  He is the first Hotel in Mendocino County with such a device and he is now considered a “Certified Green Hotel”. And now, after getting rid of the incandescent lights in the hotel lobby and converting them to 18 watt CFL’s (compact fluorescent lamps), he wants to go a step further and replace the CFL’s  with a 5 or 6 watt LED, just as soon as he finds one he likes. Our hats off to Mr. Raakesh Patel for going above and beyond in the quest for energy conservation.  Stop by and check out his new charging station, in a few years these will everywhere.

                             THE GREENING OF PEAR TREE

There are some big changes happening at the Pear Tree Center.  The Pear Tree Shopping Center located on the corner of East Perkins Street and North Orchard Avenue is the home of Lucky’s supermarket, JC Penney, Ross, Blockbuster, Big 5, and numerous other locally owned and national chain stores and restaurants.  The change it is undergoing has to do with its lighting. The shopping center owners decided to retrofit the lighting, both inside and outside, to bring them up to current energy efficiency standards.  And we are talking about a lot of lighting. A few of the stores had been upgraded in the past, but 17 of the individual shops needed a conversion to the newer, more efficient style lighting.  If you stop in one of the newly converted shops you’ll see glowing lighting panels in the “T-Bar” ceiling. The fixtures above that illuminate these panels were the old style “T-12” fluorescent type and each fixture held 4 bulbs (lamps). The power for these lamps came from the old style magnetic ballast, which tend to identify themselves by blinking several times when you turn them on, and then humming and blinking their way throughout the day. This humming and blinking has been known to cause headaches in some people. As part of the process to convert these fixtures to the new “T-8” style, the old magnetic ballast are replaced with the new electronic ballast which do not hum or blink. This change alleviates the headaches for most people. In addition to the ballast, you can also identify these old style fixtures by the large 1 ½” diameter of the bulb, with each fixture in the Pear Tree shops having 4 of them at 40 watts each. All 327 of these 4 lamp fixtures were converted to the newer “T-8” style which uses a 1” diameter bulb and, as discussed, an electronic ballast. The new T-8 fluorescents are so much brighter, and the quality of the light is so much better, that these shops now have more light than before but use only 3- 32w lamps instead of the 4-40 watt lamps they used originally. You can do the math, and add for the fact that the magnetic ballast (usually 2 per fixture) consumes 5 watts of power each to run the lamps and you’ll see these new fixtures save about 74 watts each. Figuring each fixture burns 10 hours per day, the conversion saves about $40 per year, per fixture. Not a lot until you find that some smaller shops have 35 or more of these fixtures. 

One thing they noticed immediately with the new T-8 lamps is the “color” of the light. It’s nice and bright and clean looking and at 5,000 Kelvin, it is close to natural sunlight. And while the inside lighting conversion cuts wattage and utility costs, it’s the outside walkway and parking lot lights that are going to really make a difference in the monthly bill.

 We used to live in an era of cheap, unlimited electrical power, so architects and designers made darn sure every square inch of the parking lot and walkways were lit to daytime brilliance. We are in a different world now where electricity costs are a substantial part of the expense of running a shopping center. In addition we have light pollution. In fact there aren’t really any codes that require a minimum amount of light, but there are codes that limit the maximum amount of light, and where it is pointed. 

Because the parking lot lights are so bright and consume so much electricity, it becomes very cost effective to find something that consumes less power but still provides sufficient illumination.  And we have that very thing in a new to the market lighting product called “induction” lighting. Induction lighting has been around for about a hundred years but only recently “rediscovered”.  Induction is actually just a tougher version of regular fluorescent lighting. Induction lamps are usually round (like a donut) and have a set of wire coils wrapped around the it. The coils provide the power needed to excite the gasses in the tube and cause them to give off light. This new type of lighting is so simple; it has no filament, no wiring between power supply and lamp, and has so few moving parts that the lamps are rated to last up to 100,000 hours. Burning 12 hours per day the lamp life would be more than 22 years! And compare the wattages: The lights in the Lucky’s part of the parking lot (the ones up on the tall poles) were 1,000 watt metal halide lamps. We can get sufficient replacement light from a 300 watt induction lamp. Figuring in the ballast usage that’s about 780 watts saved per fixture. By also converting the pole mounted walk way lights, the “wall pack” lights stuck on the side of the building, and even the hanging walkway lights all to induction lighting, we get all the benefits of its long lamp life, plenty of light, and at a fraction of the wattage.

                                              SOME POSITIVE ASPECTS

We have a couple of things coming together on this project that we don’t always see. First of all the owners of The Pear Tree Center are shouldering a substantial portion of the cost to do this conversion for the benefit of the shop owners and to make a commitment to a green society, an attitude not often taken by a landlord. Secondly, The owners, while spending a lot of money to make this happen, are being helped out by the City of Ukiah Commercial Lighting Rebate Program. The City of Ukiah has a program for their commercial lighting customers that will reimburse up to 60% of the cost of converting old, inefficient lighting to the newer style. That means in some cases, a refund check of almost 2/3 of the full cost! That is a fantastic program for a small utility to have. And while this project and several other commercial lighting conversion projects recently completed in our town were approved and supported by the City of Ukiah Electric Utility, none would have been  possible without the forward thinking group of people at the City government level who let their constituents know the City of Ukiah is serious about energy conservation. The City fathers have provided a workable rebate program with generous incentives, and any businessperson that has a building in the City (owns or rents), has a City of Ukiah commercial electrical account, and has a larger lighting bill than they would like, should really  look into this program. The contractor is a local company, Apperson Energy Management. The installers are also local, from Intercounty Mechanical & Electrical. The quality control, verifications and disbursements were handled by Efficiency Services, a group that assists smaller utilities in running their own conservation programs. 

                                                            THE RESULTS

 The savings generated by The Pear Tree Center’s conversion are substantial. If we count the individual shops, the walk way lighting, and the parking lot lighting, the projected savings are 337,619 kwh (kilowatt hours) per year. An all electric home uses an average of about 1,000 kwh per month, or 12,000 per year. So if we do the math we see that The Pear Tree Center is saving enough electricity to power over 28 houses! And since more than half of all electricity is lost in either transmission or generation, the amount saved actually doubles to enough for 56 houses. The amount of carbon saved is also impressive. To generate the 12,000 kwh per year each home uses, puts over 18,000 lbs. of carbon into the environment, mostly into our air. So in saving enough power for those 56 houses, over 507 tons of carbon pollution per year is saved! And if you really want an eye opener, the City of Ukiah charges about $.12 per kwh at their lowest rate for their electrical power (PG&E can get up to almost $.45 kwh) and if we do the math we see the projected savings for the owners and tenants to be over $40,000 per year! Now realize, these are “projected” savings and they are almost never are as much as forecast, but even if they were off by half it’s still an impressive savings. Another consideration in this equation is fixture age. If a building is old enough to have the old style T-12 fluorescent lighting, especially the 8’ long tubes, the fixtures would be old enough to be at the end of their useful life. Ballast will begin to fail en mass, and the magnetic ballast these old fixtures use will no longer legally be made or sold after 2012. Also, those old 8’ long lamps are going the way of the dinosaur soon. There is a change mandated that stipulates a drastic improvement in their CRI (color rendering index). This change will most likely require reengineering the 8’ lamps and most manufactures will not be spending the large amount of money it will take to meet the new spec’s. So soon, 8’ lamps may just get very scarce and/or expensive. 

So if you have a commercial building in the City of Ukiah you have something to think about, if helping to save the planet isn’t enough of a good feeling to inspire a person into action, how about that extra bulk in your savings account over the 22 year lifespan of the induction lamps. It just makes so much sense that it ought to be a law. Our hats are off to the owners for their foresight and courage to try something big. And the cool thing is their conservation efforts have a benefit to us all by making the world a little bit greener, and have a little less carbon pollution, for us and our grand kids. Go by The Pear Tree Center, especially after dark, and check out the new lights, the owners are understandably proud of the accomplishment.