by Deb Moore Print Window Close Window The staff of the Northern Alaska Environmental Center believes organizations that advocate for improved energy conservation should first make their own building and business practices as energy efficient as possible. However, for the past 20 years, the Northern Center’s offices were housed in an extremely inefficient and largely unimproveable building. If fact, Fairbanks’ only broad-based environmental organization may have been housed in the least efficient building in town! Fortunately, all that has changed. Last summer, the Northern Center finally upgraded to a dwelling that, while still far from efficient, has the potential for efficiency. Since then, the Northern Center has undergone two energy audits to determine ways to improve our energy conservation. These audits looked primarily at three categories: space heating, water heating and electrical use (lights and appliances). Over the course of the next several years we intend to implement as many of the recommended improvements as feasible. Through this and other energy-related efforts, our goal is to improve our own energy conservation standards to meet those set by Green Star or similar organizations. Prior to these audits, the Northern Center had already begun to make some of the more obvious electrical energy improvements. These included converting most of the lighting to compact fluorescent bulbs and installing power saver cords in all employees’ vehicles. Compact fluorescent bulbs save between 66 – 75% of the energy used in incandescent bulbs for comparable illumination. Power saver cords (which allow electricity to pass to the engine block heater when needed and shut off when the heater reaches ~40 F) are conservatively estimated to reduce each vehicle’s preheating energy use by ~40% over an engine heating season (when temperatures are 20 F or below). During the first audit – focused primarily on electrical use - we found several more ways in which we could conserve electricity. The biggest way was to turn off our computers at the power strip, not just the computer. (Computers have internal components that use 5 to 15 watts per hour even when switched “off”. Switching off the computer, monitor, and peripherals at the power strip eliminates these standby losses.) The same is true for many household appliances including battery chargers, boomboxes, home audio systems, TVs, VCRs and microwaves.) In addition, by turning off our monitors and computers whenever they’re not in use (i.e. turn off monitor if idle for >1/2 hour; turn off entire computer if idle >1 hour), we could save up to an additional 50 to 250 watts per hour per computer, respectively. However, the Northern Center’s biggest waste of energy comes not from electrical use but from space heating. Our second audit consisted of a walk-through assessment for air leaks, insulation and heating/cooling equipment along with a blower-door test to determine air tightness. The walk-through assessment concluded that the majority of our heating costs are going toward space – with the greatest heat loss coming from inadequately insulated walls. The report from this audit recommended two major and several minor cost-effective improvements to our building; the major ones being to install additional R-14 insulation to the below grade exterior walls and to replace both our old oil-fired water heater and oil-fired boiler with one new boiler and storage tank. These improvements would increase our energy rating from 51% to 83% and lead to an annual CO2 reduction of 53,936 lb. The blower door test involved a large fan - mounted into the frame of an outside door – which pulled air out of the building, lowering the air pressure inside. The rate at which outside air refilled the building was then determined. An adequately ventilated house should have 0.35 natural air changes per hour. Our building was found to be underventilated - with a turnover of 0.12 air changes per hour. While it may first appear that having a tight, underventilated house would offset the underinsulation, thereby decreasing our heating energy use, this isn’t the case. Controlling heating costs through underventilation does not work – counting on natural air leakage for ventilation means that you have more leakage when you want it least (winter) and not enough when you need it most (summer). Plus, an underventilated house results in poor indoor air quality and moisture damage leading to possible health problems for the residents and degradation to the building’s structure. Instead, the report from the second audit recommended treating the ventilation and heating problems separately by installing a mechanical ventilation system and making the heating improvements previously mentioned. The Northern Center encourages our members to have their homes either personally or professionally audited for energy use. For more information on these options, please check out the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Clearinghouse (EREC)’s briefing on home energy audits at http://www.eren.doe.gov/consumerinfo/refbriefs/ea2.html or call to request the information at 800-363-3732 (Voice Only). We are grateful to Greg Egan of Alaska Renewable Energy and Robert Maxwell of Alaska Energy Associates for their generous donations of time and expertise to conduct these audits and help us on our way towards improved energy efficiency. Thank you. |