In March of 2011 the Town of Wake Forest finished switching old fluorescent tubes for new LED lighting in the police station on Taylor Street and the Northern Wake Senior Center on East Holding as well as installing solar panels to heat water and a hybrid heat unit at the Community House on West Owen Avenue.
Mickey Rochelle, the director of public facilities, reported this month that in just two years the town has saved almost $17,000 in energy costs.
He compared the energy costs for the year ending in February of 2011 against the same period for 2012 and 2013.
The grant paid for the LED retrofit at the police station, but the town paid for the station renovation in 2012 which upgraded the heating/cooling system, changed the balance of the lighting and added new communications equipment. The 2011 energy costs were $19,533.21; the cost rose to $19,933.31 in 2012 but then fell to $17,630.50 for 2013, a savings overall of $1,502.61.
At the senior center, Rochelle said, “We also added automatic thermostats in 2012, giving us control and preventing them from being able to set the thermostats to multiple extreme temperatures during the day. The thermostats also allow us to keep the buildings in an unoccupied mode on holidays and weekends to conserve energy and cost.” The 2011 cost was $22,815.57 against $22,229.57 for 2012 and $17,900.07 for 2013 for savings of $5,501.50.
The largest saving, $9,938.39 was at the Community House with its new solar panels to heat water with gas-fired units as backup, a hybrid heating unit that pulls heat from the water, and a more efficient cooling condenser. In 2011 the large community facility built in 1942 by the WPA was heated, cooled and lit by electricity at a cost of $18,750.61. Gas and electric costs in 2012 were $15,537.82 and $12,025.11 in 2013.
