Upgrades to gymnasium and exterior lighting reduces energy and maintenance costs in BC school district

School District 27 in the Central Interior of British Columbia upgraded gymnasium and exterior lighting to LEDs in elementary and secondary school facilities—a change that is expected to save the district $30,000 every year.

The district is expecting that the upgrades will reduce electricity consumption by 280,000 kWh every year.

Read more about SD27’s LED upgrades at Energy Plan. 

DISTRICT-WIDE SAVINGS

Gymnasiums

• 200,000 kWh
• $21,000 annually
• Project cost – $78,000
• Incentives received – $10,000
• Simple payback of 3.2 years

Metal halide to high bay LED

• Supported by the BC Hydro BESI program
• Received approximately 25% in material funding
• Installed in-house
• Simple payback of 2 to 4 years, depending on hours of operation

F32T8 fluorescent to TLED

• Installed in-house
• Did not have to replace ballasts
• Simple payback of 2 to 3 years, depending on hours of operations

External lighting

• 80,000 kWh
• $9,000 annually
• Project cost – $20,000
• Simple payback of 2.2 years
• Numerous external fixtures all swapped to LED
• Installed in-house

Read more about SD27’s LED upgrades at Energy Plan.

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By controlling the electricity going into a motor, VFDs turn any motor into a variable speed motor. This has the biggest benefit for single-speed motors, but VFDs can also save energy for dual or multi-speed motors.

There are two main benefits of a VFD:

1. They reduce the wear-and-tear on a motor by reducing motor’s speed or torque when not required. This means less maintenance and a longer life span for the motor.
2. They save energy.

The second benefit is the interesting one. With the help of some simple math, we can see just how much energy can be saved.

Let’s use the example of a water pump filling a bucket. Assume the pump can fill a bucket in one hour.

Now let’s add a VFD into the equation. Let’s use the VFD to cut the power input by half so now it will take twice as long to fill the bucket. Over two hours, the same amount of water will be moved into the bucket.

But how much power was consumed? This is the interesting part.

When the flow rate is cut in half, the pressure is reduced to a quarter of the original pressure. And the power consumed then falls to one eighth.

Although it took twice as long to fill the bucket, the power consumption for the entire process was one quarter compared to filling the bucket in one hour. This math is explained by the Affinity Laws – a set of formulas that explain the relationship between shaft speeds, flow rates and power.

The Affinity Laws explain the following:

• Shaft speed is proportional to the flow, or ∆ speed = ∆ flow
• Pressure is proportional to the square of the shaft speed, or ∆ pressure = (∆ speed)²
• Power is proportional to the cube of the shaft speed, or ∆ power = (∆ speed)³

A more down-to-earth example of the Affinity Laws is trying to walk through a pool when the water level is nearly up to your head. It requires considerable more energy to attempt to run through the pool than to just walk through the pool.

This is why VFDs are a powerful device for energy efficiency. If it is no problem to wait an extra hour to fill the bucket, you will save three quarters of the energy.

Want that in plain English? Call us and we will explain.

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Common tasks in the workplace can be reason enough to seek innovation. Even the job of changing light bulbs.

When a Kelowna school required an update to the interior lighting throughout the building, the district energy manager used the opportunity to learn more about modern LED lighting.

Harold Schock is the energy manager for School District #23 in British Columbia, which covers Kelowna and the surrounding area. He was faced with many options to update an elementary school’s interior lighting. For a month, Schock compared quotes, lamps and ballasts to shed light onto the best LED lamps for the school.

“It seemed to be very hard to decide,” said Schock, noting there were many options of LED lighting available.

First was the decision between installing new LED fixtures or retrofitting the existing fluorescent ballasts with TLED lamps. LED fixtures have the ability to dim, and some can dim automatically to ensure room lighting is consistent even when outside light changes. Tubular LED lamps (TLEDs) are a replacement for fluorescent tubes. Depending on the existing ballasts, TLEDs can be quickly installed in fluorescent fixtures, although they may require a different ballast or rewiring to make the LED tube functional.

To keep costs down, Schock decided to go with a retrofit instead of installing new LED fixtures. He received letters of interest from suppliers and started down the road of TLED research.

“They gave me all different types of options with wattages, different light outputs and different colour renderings,” said Schock. Using a test bench in his office, Schock tested a variety of TLEDs and ballasts over the course of a month.

“Not all LEDs are the same,” he said, adding they focused on LEDs that matched the lighting needs of the school.

ASHRAE standards for classroom illumination is 50 foot-candles or a lighting power density of 15 W/m². Ensuring proper illuminance “put a different slant on how much light was actually needed to do that job” because fluorescent lighting has a different light intensity than LEDs.

After refining the search down to lamps with a sufficient – but not excessive – output, Schock focused on energy efficiency. By selecting the TLEDs with the lowest wattage and sufficient light output, Schock estimates his district will save $10,000 over 20 years compared to the TLEDs with the lowest unit cost.

Not only do the TLEDs differ from each other, but the ballasts they are paired with also make a big difference. A key finding was that LED lights performed better in ballasts of the same brand.

In the end, Schock determined the best supplier had lights of the lowest wattage but met the minimum output. This supplier also had the lowest bid.

“That’s a long way of saying we did our due diligence and found the best light lumens for the application.”

Now with the TLEDs installed, the benefits go beyond Schock’s office and into the classrooms. Schock said teachers are pleased with the new lamps.

“It is much quieter in the classrooms – there is no annoying buzzing from the fluorescent light fixtures that were in there,” he said. “And the quality of light seems to be much better because there is no more flickering.”

For maintenance staff, LED lights mean there is less time spent changing bulbs. The life expectancy of TLEDs is 20 years.

If more light retrofits arise in the future, Schock will still need to match TLED lamps with the school.

Schock said every school is different and the best lighting options differ from site to site. Square footage of rooms is the baseline factor, but window size and amount of outside light are important. In addition, the geographical location of the school and amount of available sunlight matters.

“Every situation is slightly different. Those nuances create the culture of the school.”

School District #23 has 45 schools. Two schools have been retrofitted with TLEDs, and two newer schools had LED fixtures installed when constructed.

“LED has changed the classroom,” said Schock, who has been in his current role since 2010.

“No matter if you’re using tubes or the LED light fixtures, they’ve changed the entire lighting climate of the classroom to reflect the current technology.”

For more information about selecting LEDs in school facilitates, download the free PDF – Best Practices for LED Lighting in Schools.

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Turning off lights is the easiest way to save electricity. K-12 schools in Canada and beyond are taking advantage of this simple strategy to reduce electricity costs, reduce electricity consumption and minimize vandalism.

Dark campus is a strategy to reduce electricity usage by turning off outdoor and indoor lighting when school buildings are not occupied. Turning off the lights can save money in three areas:

1. Reduces electricity consumption
2. Extends the life of lighting and electrical equipment
3. Discourages vandalism.

The focus is on outdoor lighting, such as parking lot lamps and fixtures on the outside of the building. While indoor lighting is often controllable by the building’s occupants, outdoor lighting is managed by maintenance staff or it is on electronic controls or timers. Most staff will turn off the indoor lights when they leave a room, but few would turn off the outdoor lights (or even have access to their controls) when they leave a building.

Implementing dark campus is straightforward. School facilities staff can utilize existing electrical controls systems, building automation systems or even just install timers to turn off all lighting when a building is not occupied.

Saving energy by turning off the lights isn’t a revolutionary idea. Dark campus practices have been documented in the United States since the 1970s, where a Texas school district began a black-out program at 19 schools in San Antonio.

All that is required is to turn off the lights.

Reducing energy consumption the clear benefit

It is no surprise that turning off lights reduces electricity consumption and utility costs. In addition, a reduced load on the lighting system will improve the lifespan of bulbs and fixtures.

The purpose of dark campuses is to light the school when it is occupied and turn off the lights when no one is around. For a school that is occupied from 7 am to 11:30 pm, this could reduce electricity consumption for outdoor lighting by half.

By turning off exterior lighting between 11:30 pm and 6:30 am (when the building is unoccupied) and all weekend, there is a weekly reduction of 67 hours (60%). Not considering summer or Christmas breaks, this is an annual reduction of 3,484 hours.

A school district in British Columbia reduced the costs for nighttime lighting at some facilities by 75%.

“Just turn the lights off and we’re done,” said Alex Telford, Manager of Facilities and Transportation at School District 27, noting how simple yet effective this strategy has been.

Larger facilities in School District 27 have less cost reductions because custodial staff tend to work later, but rural facilities with small custodial teams can be completely dark by 9 pm. In addition, Telford improved the energy efficiency of the exterior lighting that resulted in energy savings when the lights were on.

“Where it wasn’t possible, we changed our lighting to LED,” he continued, which can reduce energy consumption by 75% compared to conventional bulbs.

By turning off exterior lights for only 7 hours per night, school districts can save thousands of dollars annually.

Crime and vandalism prevention

Darkness and crime don’t always go together.

In the 1970s, public schools in San Antonio, Texas began a dark campus program and started to turn off their outdoor and parking lot lights. The schools experienced less vandalism and graffiti.

“We probably saved 40% on vandalism by going to lights out” – Dale Churchill

Dale Churchill has implemented dark campus at four school districts in British Columbia, with the first project starting in 2001.

“We won both ways on reduction of vandalism costs and on energy costs,” said Churchill, who is currently the Director of Facilities and Transportation at the Abbotsford School District.

“How we came into was we just started an energy program but we more had trouble on the vandalism side. We started turning off lights and our vandalism started clearing up. Not eliminating, but we probably saved 40% on vandalism by going to lights out.”

Churchill has observed reduction on historically challenging evenings, notable Halloween. Most vandalism and damage has occurred where the lights have been on. People don’t like hanging around if they are unable to see.

There are a few more ideas why less lighting can contribute to reduced vandalism:

• It takes time for passerby’s eyes to adjust from dark to bright lighting, particularly in the case of unshielded flood lights.
• Lighting is useful for criminals to see what they are doing, as per a 1997 report by the United States National Institute of Justice.
• Occupancy is one of the biggest deterrents in criminal activity, and outdoor lighting is not a good indicator of occupancy.

The United States Department of Justice released a report in 1977 showing that outdoor lighting reduces the fear of crime but there was no statistically significant evidence that street lighting reduced crime from actually happening. The report recommended that street lighting be used in the role of deterring crime. On empty campuses, however, exterior lighting has less benefit to the school community and more to individuals seeking vandalism opportunities.

Keeping the campus safe

Although turning off the outdoor lighting may reduce vandalism and graffiti, it is necessary to keep students, teachers and staff comfortable. Everyone should feel safe when they are in and around the school.

To improve the sense of security, sufficient lighting is necessary when people are leaving or entering the buildings.

Churchill explained that safety is the primary concern of school staff when he started dark campus projects. The key to “misinformation regarding safety” is explaining to teachers and staff that the lights will always be on when necessary, including when they arrive and leave the school at late hours.

“Answer the safety question,” explained Churchill.

“Ensure that lights will be on when they are in the school. When the building is not occupied, the lights are out.”

Personal safety has become the biggest burden to implementing dark campus policies in post-secondary campuses in the United States, according to an American dark sky advocacy group.

“Facilities managers are usually on board with the idea, but the administration is generally not,” said John Barentine, Program Manager for the International Dark Sky Organization.

“Here, the reason is driven by fear, specifically related to sexual assaults on campuses. There is a very strong feeling on the part of students that doing anything to campus lighting that doesn’t result in more light will make the campus unsafe.”

Barentine called for more education about lighting and safety.

“I’m told, anecdotally, by students who have tried to start these movements that they’ve received pushback from other student groups, in an organic way, about the personal safety issue. While our communications generally talk about the effects of bad lighting that can compromise safety, these messages aren’t being heard on campuses.”

With activities and events in K-12 more confined to regular hours compared to post-secondary institutions, it is easier for K-12 campuses to be turn off the lights at night and keep all staff and students feeling safe. But facility managers still need to address any and all concerns of personal safety before turning off the lights.

Tips to implement dark campus in your schools

Any facility can begin implementing a dark campus approach by turning off the lights. This can be done with the help of custodial staff or technology. Whatever method you use, here are some tips to get started.

Schedule lighting around the school

The ideal schedule is dynamic and responsive to the school community. Exterior lights should be off after everyone leaves and on shortly before the first staff arrive. This is easier said than done, however.

Churchill schedules the lighting in his facilities around the custodial schedules.

“Our whole approach was we gave the custodians 15 minutes to get to their car and get outs, and the lights would go off. And the lights would stay off all weekend,” explained Churchill.

“They come on 15 minutes before the custodian starts in the morning. If not, we time it an hour before school starts.”

Simple or complex technologies will work

Use seven-day timers

Timers are simple yet effective tools to control exterior lights. Churchill estimates that around three-quarters of his facilities are controls by 7-day timers. Photocells are useful to automatically adjust for lighting, however Churchill said his experience with photocells has not left him convinced. They can be too sensitive to cloudy or overcast weather.

Link exterior lighting with your automation or controls systems

Automation and control systems are ideal to schedule exterior lighting, but there are a few issues that both Churchill and Telford have come across. Older or smaller facilities may not have existing automation systems. And if the systems do exist, exterior lights sometimes are not integrated into the systems and are either on all-the-time or set to independent schedules. If a facility has a building automation system and the exterior lights are connected, scheduling for dark campus is simple.

Link exterior lighting with your security systems

In School District 27, Telford improved the dynamic response of the outdoor lighting by connecting the lights to the intruder alarm system. This approach is “fairly complex” compared to timers or linking to the automation system, but it ensures lights go off as soon as possible. When the last staff leave for the night and engage the alarm system, the exterior lights are scheduled to turn off in 15 minutes and then turn on in the morning around 6 am.

Let the school community know

Inform staff, teachers, students, parents and the police or RCMP that you are implementing dark campus at your facilities. In addition to addressing concerns, this can assist security by informing the community to report any lights that may be seen in the middle of the night.

The goal is blackout

Although many facilities will not be ideal to go fully lights out due to infrastructure, scheduling and community considerations, the more lights turned off mean reduced electricity costs and potential for unwanted visitors to be spotted when they turn on a light.

Share your success

Dark campus programs are effective because they can create significant reductions in electricity costs and vandalism without a large investment. If your district has been turning off the lights for many years or just getting started, we would love to hear from you. Let us know what has made your dark campus initiative a success.

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Changing to energy efficient lighting does more than save energy

Schools throughout School District No. 27 (Cariboo – Chilcotin) are replacing lights with LEDs. These small lights are common in string lights, electronics, toys and exit signs, but now they can be used in most outdoor and indoor fixtures.

Incandescent bulbs are very inefficient. In fact, they generate so much heat that only 5% of the energy provided is used to produce light. Switching to LED lights can cut the energy costs for lighting in half! This is good for the environment and good for our schools.

There are even more benefits of LED lights. Here are some reasons switching to LEDs from traditional incandescent or fluorescent bulbs makes sense:

• LED lights last 6x longer
• Don’t contain any harmful chemicals like mercury or lead
• Can be turned on instantly
• Don’t produce intense heat so they are safer to touch
• Can produce coloured light without filters
• Dimmable
• Don’t flicker

Another great reason LED lights are better – they help our students learn! Good lighting is important in the classroom and LEDs provide better quality.

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The Sunshine Coast School District is living up to its name.

British Columbia School District 46 (Sunshine Coast) is in the process of installing significant amounts of photovoltaic solar on the roofs at three facilities.

Langdale Elementary School in Gibsons, BC just underwent a boiler retrofit project and the replacement of all the original single-pane windows with low emissivity double glazing. Funding left over from the boiler retrofit as well as a previous roofing project is now being invested into photovoltaic solar at the school.

“This is a very exciting project! The location of the building and the style of roofing has enabled us to be able install a net metering solar array that is expected to produce 98 megawatt-hours of electricity annually,” said Rob Collison, district manager of facilities and transportation.

“The school typically uses around 90 Megawatt hours per year, which means this facility will actually be an energy utility instead of a customer.”

Collison said the district plans to refit the school lighting system in the coming years to all LED lighting, which will reduce the electricity consumption even further.

In the end, the panels are expected to have a payback period far less than the life expectancy.

“In terms of simple payback, it’s looking to be about 16 years. The panels are guaranteed for 25 years, but most suppliers are suggesting 35 years to be a reasonable life expectancy.”

The two other facilities in SD46 being studied for solar feasibility are Davis Bay Elementary in Sechelt, BC and Pender Harbour Secondary in Madeira Park, BC. Both schools are heated completely by electricity and both schools have received funding for HVAC system replacements due to the age of the systems.

Although electricity is a clean and reliable heat source, the cost is expensive and rates are expected to increase significantly over the coming years.

“We looked at converting both schools over to hydronic heating and adding a fuel source, but we would then be actually increasing our carbon footprint – which isn’t the least bit appetizing,” said Collison.

Other ideas were carbon neutral options like biomass and biodiesel, but both are expensive and not easy to get on the Sunshine Coast.

“We ran the numbers, looked at all of our options, and solar was the obvious choice at 50% the annual utility cost of the next nearest option.”

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Rob Collison is the manager of facilities and transportation for BC School District 46 (Sunshine Coast)

The shimmering solar panels on Elphinstone Secondary in Gibsons, BC offer more than just a source of hot water. They are an example of sustainable infrastructure that students can look at everyday.

Rob Collison is the manager of facilities and transportation for British Columbia School District 46 (Sunshine Coast). He said the timing was right to add a solar hot water system to the facility.

“We were doing a boiler plant replacement project and it made sense to do it at the same time.”

The previous system required the boilers to run all the time (even during the summer) to heat the water through the heat exchanger. The new solar hot water system is supplemented with a small gas-fired tank because Sunshine Coast School District is, in fact, not always sunny.

“We get lots of grey days were there is really not much solar taken advantage of,” said Collison, noting that hot water can be supplied completely from the solar system on sunny days.

“There are many months we won’t see the sun at all – it is just grey.”

Collison estimated the backup operates around half the time, but it varies significantly month-to-month.

Considering solar potential is limited in British Columbia by clouds and rain, Collison would still consider adding panels to another school. The biggest factor to consider is the timing of the project.

“If you’re going to do a solar project, it’s important to make sure your roof is not due for replacement in the near future. You want to make sure your timing is right.”

The two-loop system is composed of a pump for the glycol loop (pumps glycol through the solar panels), a heat exchanger (transfers the heat from the glycol into the domestic hot water loop) and a storage tank.

In terms of operation, Collison said solar hot water “couldn’t be simpler.” The only added maintenance besides keeping the panels clean is maintaining the circulation pumps.

Saving money was not a big priority for the project. As a capital funded project, Collison hasn’t felt the need to justify the costs. In addition, modern schools don’t have a big need for hot water; meaning expenses for hot water are not as high as they were when students regularly showered at school.

And there are added benefits that go beyond dollars. The panels are a visible lesson for energy efficiency and sustainability. Collison and the facilities staff have explained the system to students on numerous occasions.

“The students are all aware that there are solar panels on the roof.”

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Here are some quick explanations to explain electricity energy conservation to colleagues, teachers and students.

Quick overview of a “watt”

What really is a watt?

A watt is the rate of electricity consumed. It is the work done per second, so a watt measures how much energy is consumed per period of time.

This is where the challenge arises from explaining watts – it isn’t a measurement of the total amount of electricity that is consumed, but rather the rate of electricity consumed or produced. Electricity conservation is more concerned with the overall magnitude of electricity consumed instead of how quickly the electricity was used.

Let’s use water in a pipe as an analogy: a watt is similar to the pressure in the pipe, which determines how much work the water can do. The larger the pipe diameter, the greater the available pushing power.

Where did watt come from?

A watt is a standard unit of power – one watt is equal to one joule per second. With this definition, watts can be used to explain the amount of power required for mechanical tasks. If you climb a three-metre-high ladder in five seconds, you did work at a rate of around 600 watts.

With some conversions, watts can be used to measure the work done through electrical potential difference. Watts = Volts * Amps. If a 12-volt phone charger is 0.9 amps, then 10.8 watts of electricity is transferred into the phone at one time.

And where did “watts” come from? In 1882, the British Association for the Advancement of Science named the unit of measurement after James Watt. The Scottish scientist, who lived from 1736 to 1819, advanced the steam engine that contributed to the Industrial Revolution.

The useful unit: watt-hours

Watt is a unit of power – the rate of work done. A watt-hour is a unit of energy – the magnitude of work. The amount of electricity consumed is measured in watt-hours, typically kilowatt-hours.

Here is the classic example: a 60-watt lightbulb turned on for 2 hours consumes 120 watt-hours of electricity.

In our water analogy, a watt-hour is the flow of water over time.

Here is another example: a car engine size is the power – the bigger the engine, the more horsepower. Gas is the energy and gas being run through the engine is the work being done over time. So a kilometre is the distance-equivalent of a watt, and a kilometre-per-hour is similar to a watt-hour.

Putting a price tag on watts

No matter how clear the explanation of watts is, it is still a challenge to visualize electricity consumption. Electricity is invisible and watt-hours is just a random number to most people. A price tag on electricity turns consumption into a concrete value.

1 kW is equal to about $1,000 . A device that required 1 kW to run will consume about $1,000 of electricity if left on for an entire year. For most people, 1 kW is just a random number. But $1,000 will make sense.

Your district’s electricity bills are part power and part energy. Part of the cost is in kWs, which is like renting a truck based on its hauling capacity. The other part is kWhs, which is like paying for the gas. One part is the power capacity and the other is the work done.

So that means there are a few ways to save energy. Lower the maximum power required in your facilities (such as turning off lights when the electric cafeteria stoves are on) or reduce how long electricity is consumed (such as reducing how long the lights are on).

Whatever approach you choose, you can save energy, save money and have a direct impact on your operating budgets.

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On April 1, 2017, all Medium General Service (MGS) and Large General Service (LGS) customers will charged for energy consumption with a flat rate for energy used and another flat rate for demand usage.

“As most customers found the current baseline rates too complex and did not achieve energy conservation as expected, we proposed simpler, flat rates,” stated a BC Hydro release on Feb. 14.

“We believe the new rate will make it easier for you to plan and budget for your electricity costs, energy efficiency or expansion projects.”

BC Hydro is removing tiered pricing for energy and demand charges, and there will be no more baselines. Customers will be billed for actual electricity consumption.

Conservation rates will remain for residential customers, where they are considering more effective in promoting electricity conservation.

Forecasting electricity consumption from the conservation rates was “terribly difficult,” says Matthew Redekopp, CEO of Rede Energy Solutions.

Matthew adds the conservation rates had the potential to penalize customers in two ways:

1. A drastic one-time reduction in energy use for any reason (such as from restructuring or construction work) from one year would be averaged into the three-year rolling baseline. Going back to pre-change operations resulted in higher electricity costs. BC Hydro would exempt only significant reductions in energy usage – below 80%.
2. The payback for conservation projects would rise after three years when the new energy consumption was averaged into the baseline.

The new flat rate will not penalize customers for one-time reductions in energy use, but Matthew says the proposed rates will reduce energy costs and may discourage conservation efforts.

“They want us to use more energy now that they have a surplus.”

One year after the conservation rate structure was introduced, BC Hydro announced in a news release on Jan. 9, 2012 that they have “been paying off for those who’ve tackled energy-efficiency projects.”

“With a year of billing under the new rate structure, many LGS customers who have been working towards energy efficiency — working with Power Smart through the Product Incentive Program and the Industrial Program — are seeing the results.”

The charge per kWh for the new flat rates have not yet been finalized, but BC Hydro estimates MGS and LGS customers will be charged the following:

Proposed flat rates for MGS

Proposed flat rates for LGS

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Many people take their cell phone bill very seriously. They analyze and review the small addons – a few extra dollars for more minutes and a few more for visual voicemail – and stick to what they absolutely need. Small additions add up over the course of a phone plan, so they are phone-feature efficient.

The same approach needs to be applied to energy consumption.

It is my job to assist organizations in improving the energy efficiency of their facilities. To help explain the monetary benefit of energy efficiency, I like to use this math:

1 kW running all year (8,760 hours) is 8,760 kWh

Blended rate for electricity is around $0.10 in BC

8,760 kWh x $0.10 = $876 per year

To factor in peak hour rates, assume an extra ~$25 per month

12 x $25 = $300 per year

$876 + ~$300 = ~$1,000 per year

1 kW running always costs ~$1,000 per year.

This approximate price on energy efficiency illustrates the value of optimizing your facilities. The next step is to understand where electricity is being used. Create an inventory and focus on optimizing devices or systems that are always turned on. Energy consumption is not just about how much energy something draws, but how much it is turned on.

The potential for energy savings becomes visible when you know how much you are using and where it is being used. Removing an object that requires 1 kW of electricity can very well save you $1,000 per year.

Use this simple math to improve energy awareness in facilities staff and building occupants. It shows that small changes do add up.

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