State Is Ready To Plug Its Own Energy Leaks

After a balky start, due in no small part to the budget uncertainties in the first half of the year, the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection is on the verge of launching its first major energy efficiency initiative.
Called Lead By Example--a name not uncommon around the nation for energy conservation programs--Connecticut's is designed to address a long and longstanding list of inefficient and otherwise outdated energy components in state buildings and other properties.
Some of the energy retrofit projects involve performance contracts, a process that pays for energy efficiency upgrades with the cost savings achieved by making them. Others are being paid for outright with state funds, starting with $15 million approved by the state Bond Commission last month.
Action on these projects is being spurred by a provision in the energy legislation passed this spring that requires energy usage in state buildings to be reduced by 10 percent by Jan. 1, 2013.
"That's really soon," laughed Alex Kragie, a special assistant to DEEP commissioner Dan Esty. "I kind of regret that date now.
"That's a big order."
The plan is to start with three of the many projects, some of which have languished for years, and using bond money to get them done.
"After these three we will know the process," Kragie said. "We'll know how to do this, and then we'll draw into our deeper pool of projects."
The biggest of the three is to replace all the incandescent lights and guidance signs at Bradley Airport and the five general aviation facilities run by the Department of Transportation with LEDs. The cost is $540,000. With a projected annual savings of just under $160,000--including maintenance--payback would take less than three-and-a-half years.
A $400,000 project will replace the HVAC and lighting systems in the library at Eastern Connecticut State University with state-of-the-art automated controls--a five-year payback. And the third would upgrade the roof HVAC unit at Cybulski correctional facility in Enfield for $187,000 with about a six-year payback.
"It's an investment," Kragie said. "Not just 15 million flying out the door."
Roger Smith of Clean Water Action said that the state was finally taking action on these projects was a pleasant shock. "It's something they've been talking about for years, but never were serious," he said. "I think 15 million is a great place to start.
"It's important to get projects up and running because it helps to get building managers excited."
And that's exactly the point of Lead By Example said Jonathan Schrag, DEEP's new deputy commissioner in charge of energy, on the job only a couple of weeks.

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