Community center to become more efficient

HOME > NEWS



A Newsletter by the City of Saco, Maine	June, 2007	Return to newsletter index

The Community Center on 75 Franklin Street has been the subject of an effort on the part of the city to make municipal buildings more energy efficient. The initial aspect of this was to establish a city energy committee to formulate ideas and recommendations on how to proceed. After an examination of all municipal buildings it was decided to have an energy audit completed of the community center building. The energy audit report not only gave us an idea of where deficiencies were in the building but also included recommendations on building improvements. After an examination of the report, key areas of the building were chosen for improvement based on the best payback. Years for payback of each individual project were calculated based on the cost of the project relative to projected cost savings against the current energy consumption of the building.

These improvements have ranged from installing energy efficient lighting (payback of 3.94 years) to the improvement of the control system for the steam heating system (payback of 6.2 years). The overall goal of these projects is to show a significant drop in energy consumption. This has already been achieved with the lighting upgrade. A comparison of electrical consumption from March, 2006 to March, 2007 showed a 1/3 decrease in the amount of kilowatts used in the community center. Once the heating upgrades are complete the projection is to have the same reduction in oil consumption. With the rising cost of energy and recent state and federal reimbursement incentives the time is right to make these improvements not only in commercial buildings but residential ones as well. To get more information on making your own home more energy efficient you can visit the Efficiency Maine website at: http://www.efficiencymaine.com