Energy (In)Efficiency

Joe Deimeck
Mar.24.2010


Sometimes in life what you see might not be representative of what actually is going on. The lack of renewable energy technologies in downtown Burlington might perplex the city’s progressive and environmentally aware population, but according to Burlington Electric’s Chris Burns it’s a combination of energy efficient technologies that provide the best opportunity for saving money and energy.

“There’s no silver bullet. We call it diversification. You’ve gotta get a little bit from everything,” Burns says.

And everything means everything from insulating every nook and cranny of a house to lighting, heating, and ventilation controls.

In fact, Burns says, “A lot of it is control stuff. A lot of it is outside air economizers. Take a look at Burlington’s climate, there are many many hours in the year where you can have Mother Nature do the work for you.”

This is why Burlington Electric has installed free air ventilation systems in many of the convenience and grocery stores around Burlington. According to Burns, it’s simply more cost-effective than the renewable stuff.

“Let’s say it costs you 5000 dollars to do a free air economizer system in a convenience store refrigeration walk-in—hypothetically—you might be saving 2000 dollars a year on your power costs. Now, the problem with solar—photo voltaic—is that the price is really expensive. So to get a 1000 watt PV array installed right now would cost you about 7500 bucks, and if it was oriented perfectly to solar south it would save about 140 dollars a year. So 140 bucks a year and it’s gonna cost you 7500 bucks to do it.”

The financial incentive is clear, but how do they work? Outside sensors take readings of the temperature. When the temperature drops low enough, the refrigeration compressors are turned off while the duct work is opened and low energy fans bring in the cold air. Once it becomes too hot or humid, the compressors are turned back on.
Another small, but effective technology in use throughout much of Burlington are occupancy sensors, which keep track of whether there’s people in a room or not. If no one’s there, the lights go off until someone enters. In some cases, these occupancy sensors can also control ventilation.

“There’s sensors around the room that sit there and say, ‘This place is unoccupied, or for some reason there’s only 15 people in this room when there should be a hundred,’” says Burns. “’I’m only going to give enough ventilation for nobody or 15 people or 100 people. I’m going to react to what you need.’”

The smart ventilation controls not only save energy, but they cut down on maintenance costs as well.

“The wear and tear on the equipment comes down, but the energy savings are tremendous,” Burns says. “We’re also doing this in underground parking garages with carbon monoxide based on exhaust. Instead of running these exhaust systems 24/7, let’s be smarter about it.”

With everything controlled by computers, it’s natural to wonder what would happen if the system failed. Would people suffocate as the ventilation control system thinks no one is around? Chris Burns noted the concern fire code officials had, but fortunately these systems fail closed. Basically, when they fail the system will remain on 24/7 until somebody realizes the controls have failed. The safety measure is that it reverts back to the way it would operate without the energy efficient controls in place. Rather than stale or tainted air, it’s energy inefficiency until the problem is fixed.

But as Burns mentions, the real struggle is convincing people that energy efficiency makes more sense economically and environmentally than renewable technologies.

“There’s this, I’m not going to call it conflict, but maybe it’s a misunderstanding, and maybe there’s a little competition between the energy efficiency folks and the renewable folks. Energy efficiency just isn’t very sexy. People start to get glassed over pretty fast once I start talking to them about it, but people like solar panels and wind turbines.”

In an effort to make Burlington more energy efficient, Burlington Electric is using what Burns calls a “carrots and sticks” approach. The “sticks”, he says, come in the form of the energy efficiency code for residential and commercial buildings.

“What we did back in the early 90s is we developed energy efficiency construction codes for all buildings,” says Burns. “When someone goes in to get their permit—an electrical permit, a planning and zoning permit, a building permit—they need to prove the building meets this baseline of energy efficiency.”

The code is stricter in regards to new construction projects than it is with existing buildings.

“For a new construction project for them to get their occupancy permit they need to have a medal from Burlington Electric that says you meet the code. And if it’s an existing building, which we have a lot of, if any component of that building which you’re replacing is covered by the code it must be brought up to code.”

So if someone wants to replace the heating system or the windows of a building, those new additions must meet the code. However, whenever Burlington Electric evaluates any potential renovation project, if they see that the building is deficient in certain areas they seize the opportunity. It is in those moments when the “carrots” approach is exercised.

And it is through incentives provided by the P.O.W.E.R program (Property Owners Win with Efficiency and Renewables), which passed in May 2009, that Burlington Electric makes it easier for citizens and business owners to make their properties more energy efficient.

Essentially, if a property owner can’t afford the cost of an energy efficiency project, Burlington Electric will cover 10-50% of the project’s cost. The loaned money is then paid back through an increase in the owner’s property tax. If the person sells the property before the loan is repaid, the next owner will inherit the remaining cost via the property tax.

The challenge, however, has been convincing building owners to take the steps towards energy efficiency. In a city like Burlington, where demand for housing is high and the population is filled with college students and young professionals, who typically leave after a few years, getting people to invest in these renovations is difficult.

A big part of what Burlington Electric does is form relationships with its biggest energy users because unlike most energy companies, BED isn’t about upping usage rates to make more money. After all, it’s a non-profit branch of the city. Instead, Burlington Electric is concerned with reducing usage rates. By reaching out to its biggest energy users they not only provide the opportunity and incentive to become energy efficient, but they also make it so BED is among the first places called when those customers do want to upgrade their property.

“I think the problem is that Burlington is a popular place to be. It’s the landlords’ market,” says Burns. “It’s not like we have a glut of empty apartments around. So low supply, high demand, the landlord can pretty much get what they want and they don’t have to take care of their buildings. That’s why we put the energy codes in place. We adjust that code every few years as the technology improves. The code has been around since 1991, but it’s been revised about 5 times.”