By Chris Brown
Experts at the Kentucky Pollution Prevention Center, part of U of L’s J.B. Speed Scientific School, are working to help area businesses reduce energy costs for their facilities.
The KPPC’s services, which are “free, voluntary and confidential,” according to the university’s Web site, pair businesses throughout the region with energy specialists who analyze manufacturing processes, climate control and lighting systems and look for ways to reduce pollution output from production plants while optimizing energy use to save the business money on utility costs.
“Operating an organization as energy-efficiently as possible saves money and protects the environment by reducing the burning of fossil fuels,” KPPC Director Cam Metcalf said.
During the 2003-04 fiscal year, U of L says KPPC conducted 16 energy efficiency assessments of both public and private organizations as part of the Kentucky Energy Efficiency Program. Recommendations from the assessments could save businesses more than 18 million kilowatt hours of energy usage, says the university. Based on recent trend in utility costs, this could mean about $700,000 in total annual savings for KPPC’s clients.
According to KPPC technical coordinator Richard Meisenhelder, businesses have traditionally treated energy as a fixed cost that needs to be paid without much scrutiny, but those attitudes are changing.
“A lot of companies think they can’t do anything about energy costs,” Meisenhelder said, “but we try to tell them that they can implement some form of energy management to track what they’re using and find ways to be more energy efficient.”
In a recent energy assessment at the Johnson Controls plant in Cadiz, Ky., for example, Meisenhelder helped reduce electrical costs by about 10 percent when he found that the company qualified for a lower industrial rate on its electric bill.
In another assessment, energy efficiency specialist Sieglinde Kinne recommended that a Gulf States Paper Corporation facility in Nicholasville, Ky., switch its 600 light bulbs from 400-watt metal halide bulbs to 360-watt metal halide bulbs, which provide the same amount of light in the same type of fixture but use less energy.
“When all the bulbs are replaced, we estimate we’ll save about 65,000 kilowatt hours per year, or about $5,000,” said Chris Denham, the plant’s environmental coordinator. He also said that his company will save an additional $18,500 by changing from propane to compressed natural gas to power hydraulics on forklift trucks.
Kinne, Meisenhelder and others at KPPC have also helped clients maximize efficiency of heating and cooling systems, and other aspects of lighting control systems. According to information on the university Web site, the center’s energy experts recommend clients use timers and sensors that dim or turn off lights and programmable thermostats that lower temperatures when facilities aren’t being used.
More information about KPPC and its services is available on the center’s Web site at http://www.kppc.org.
