LED T8’s Are Cheaper Than Fluorescent T8’s in the Long Run

 LED prices have dropped since this article was written!

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Induction Bulbs are Replacing LEDs! Click here for info.

LED Retrofit Analysis:

Replacement of (2) fluorescent T8 light bulbs with (2) LED T8’s (fixtures remain in place, ballast is removed):

LED Bulb Cost: $ 96.00 for (2) 48″ T8 Equivalent 120V, 15W, 300 LED, 150 lumen each)
less ballast cost: -$ 30.00 (Assume Qty(1) per Fixture)
less T8 bulb cost: -$ 8.00 for (2) bulbs

Cost differential for LED vs T8: $ 58.00 per fixture

Cost of LEDs over their 12 year lifespan (0 Replacements): $ 96.00
Replacement cost of T8 over 12 years: $ 130.00 not including installation labor
Assumptions: 3 ballast replacements and 5 T8 bulb replacements

Operating cost of 2 LEDs over 12 years: 30 watts x 40 hrs/wk x 52 wks x 12 yrs x $ 0.00011 = $ 82
Operating cost of 2 T8’s over 12 years: 68 watts x (above constants) = $ 187

Annual operating cost savings using LEDs: ($ 187 – $ 82) / 12 = $ 8.75

Payback is achieved in 5.48 years on electrical savings alone. With an expected life of 12 years, these bulbs will pay for themselves twice!

Total costs (replacement plus operating) of each technology over 12 years (comparing one-to-one):

Fluorescent: $ 158                          LED: $ 89

This does not even take into account other incentives such as commercial real estate credits for LEED certification, utility rebates, etc.

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The CNN Money piece titled “Knock $ 4,000 of Your Utility Bill” does a great job of offering simple advice with great payback. Isn’t that what you want? Aren’t you tired of unpractical innovations like a solar powered pocket book, which not only looks goofy, but does nothing to help you save money or reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Many of their simple fixes cost under $ 1,000, some even less than $ 100, but offer payback periods of a year of less. After one year, these fixes become PROFITABLE to you!

Let’s take a look at some here:

• Insulate Attic

Cost: $ 500 – $ 1,000

Payback: $ 500 – $ 1,000 / year

Don’t stop here – this one is one of the most expensive with the slowest payback period. This gets better soon. See the other tips below.

Comment on the recommended Attic Tent, which insulates around attic hatches: Amazon.com sells a more economical alternative called Battic Door. Click here for information and pricing.

• Great Stuff – Insulating Foam

Cost: $ 15.00

Payback: $ 500.00 / year

Comment: Get Great Stuff Insulating Foam from $ 5.33 / bottle by clicking here

• Insulation Jacket on Water Heater

Cost: $ 40.00

Payback: $ 100 /year

Comment: You wouldn’t need to insulate your water heater if you used a tankless water heater, which creates hot water on demand – fast and efficiently. Make it even more efficient by pre-heating your water with a solar powered water heater on your roof. Click here to see more energy efficient home products including high efficiency appliances like refrigerators and washing machines.

• Schedule a Periodic Service Call

Cost: $ 100- $ 200 / year

Payback: $ 300 – $ 500 / year

Comment: Call us for a referral to a good service company in the Mid-Atlantic region: 443-864-3072.

• Cover the Ducts

Cost: $ 50 – $ 250

Payback: $ 500 – $ 1,500 / year

Comment: The all-time favorite fix-it, duct-tape, can delivery an almost unbelievable payback for its cost. Add a little additional cost to purchase duct insulation and you’re done.

• Use Time-Settings for Heat

Cost: $ 40.00 or Free using BG&E’s PeakRewards as explained below

Payback: $ 500 / year

Comment: While a programmable thermostat is a great energy-saving idea when used correctly and can be installed very easily by yourself, you sometimes have to be careful about which type you buy if you own a heatpump. To make matters simpler, and cheaper, if you live in Maryland’s Baltimore Gas & Electric service area, you can contact BG&E to take advantage of their PeakRewards Smart Energy Savers Program. By doing so, Baltimore Gas & Electric will provide you with a new, digital thermostat and free installation. Furthermore, the digital thermostat is programmable over the internet. You enter the settings on a website, and then they are transmitted over radio to your thermostat and automatically programmed to make energy saving so simple that you are more likely to do it. Note that by agreeing to be in the program, you are allowing BG&E to remotely cycle your compressor on and off at their discretion on peak energy emergency days, but BG&E claims they will only use it a few times per summer. This might cause your indoor air to be warmer or more humid, but that shouldn’t matter to families which commute to work during those peak hours. Since BG&E is able to more efficiently manage their peak power usage, their costs decrease. They pass some of this back to you as a rebate for being on the PeakRewards program. You can learn more about PeakRewards and sign up at Baltimore Gas & Electric’s PeakRewards website at:

http://www.bgesmartenergy.com/peakrewards/what-is-peakrewards

Note: Although the PeakRewards program has its benefits, BG&E’s time of day billing has some definite downsides, judging from comments posted by customers on Jay Hancock’s blog.

Notice: For more information on how MGPC can help you with energy savings, visit us by clicking here. 

Note that the same results as discussed in the article below could have been accomplished at a fraction of the Enigin price by using “The Energy Detective” and “Energy Tracking WEM-EX.” There are many better alternatives to Enigin.

by Timmy Gelles | Staff Writer

(Reprinted with permission of The Laurel Gazette)

In an effort to reduce a skyrocketing utility bill, the Laurel Boys and Girls Club is teaming up with Maryland Green Power Company, which will donate energy-saving equipment pro-bono.

Patrick Reed, LBGC executive director, said the club spends about $90,000 each year on heating and electricity, a price that has increased 30 percent during the past couple of years. With rising fuel prices, he said this year’s bill will top $120,000.

“The energy cost has never really been this high,” Reed said.

Much of the high cost is due to the age of the LBGC building and the condition of its insulation and windows. The LBGC building was built in 1899, some renovations were done in 1935 and 1950 but the original windows remain.

Vanessa van der Have, the club’s under-age 6 soccer team coach, said she wanted to find an affordable long-term solution to the soaring costs and contacted Maryland Green Power, who offered to help the club pro-bono.

“The energy bill is preposterous,” said Dennis Meizys, owner of the Columbia-based Maryland Green Power.

Meizys said that the LBGC is the first pro-bono contract his company has ever done.

“It was perfect site because they have very high energy usage,” Meizys said. “And they’re a social work group, so they should spend their money on other things besides electricity.”

Meizys said Maryland Green Power has donated more than $7,000 of equipment, including the EnergyMaps system which allows LBGC to remotely monitor its energy usage. EnergyMaps analyses the data and allows each staff member to view it in real time, whereby they can see their effects on the overall consumption.

Meizys said EnergyMaps is probably the most effective way to cut down energy usage.

In six months, with all the data logged and examined, Meizys said he will meet with the LBGC and look at things that require small to medium investments. He said some options include a new lighting system in the gymnasium and adding water cooling capabilities that should save the club 30 percent on air conditioning costs.

The club is also taking steps on its end. Reed said he and club officials are educating each of the 18 programs on how to be more energy conscience, such as turning off lights when not in use.

He said the club is working on receiving a government loan to acquire new windows or repair the existing windows. Reed said he is expecting a report within a couple weeks on whether the windows are even repairable.

Reed said the rise in prices has cut into LBGC programs. Each year the club normally offers 400 partial or full waivers for families who cannot afford the $75 program fee. This year, the club can only provide 200 waivers to its 3,500 youth participants.

With winter on the horizon, the rising oil prices will also add to the bill. Reed said the boiler usually costs about $12,000 a month during the winter. This year he projects the cost will rise up to $17,000 per month.

The future of the club’s finances looks optimistic. Reed said that within 18 months, the LBGC should start reducing its energy by 40 percent. Meizys said the amount of money the LBGC will save will be larger than the amount they currently pay.

“I think it’s a win-win for both because [Meizys] aligned himself with the largest club in Maryland,” van der Have said. “And for the club, the more support they can get from the outside — from the private sector, the parents, the volunteers — the better.”

E-mail Timmy Gelles at tgelles@gazette.net.

Sellers offer “Green” Incentive Package to Buyers

Boca Raton, Florida (PRWEB) March 5, 2008 — With headlines reading “Home prices to post another decline in ‘08,” residential home sellers are between a rock and a hard place. In order to set their home apart from the 235 houses on the market in their price range in the Boca Raton, Florida area, Tara and Daniel Biller devised a “green home” incentive plan for potential buyers. They are offering buyers a slew of environmentally friendly upgrades and products including a solar water heater system.

“Tara and Daniel Biller are in the same situation as millions of American’s with a home to sell,” said Torm Martinson, broker/agent for Campbell & Rosemurgy Real Estate. “They’ve lowered their asking price, made home improvements and have been patient waiting for an offer – any offer.”

“We realized it was time to do something different to set our house apart,” commented Tara. “I’m in the process of starting up a residential ‘green home’ consulting service and I have been doing a lot of research on solar panels and outfitting the home with more environmentally friendly solutions. Daniel and I devised this plan to see if this would peak the interest of potential buyers.”

For those that are interested in learning more about the Biller’s home and the “green home” incentive package, please contact Torm Martinson at 561-504-6200, or torm@campbellandrosemurgy.com.

Luxim’s Plasma Light Bulb is More Efficient Than Even LED’s

However, until Luxim’s product is available on the market and affordable, you can find information about our LED lighting products, and distributors can receive wholesale price lists at the following link:

Click here for LED lighting brochures and wholesale prices!

Nice feature: The light closely mimics sunlight – much more pleasant than fluorescent.

It doesn’t always take grand gestures to save energy. As Hollydale Elementary students are proving, something as simple as a little red ticket can serve as a useful reminder – and now their school is saving $800 a month in energy costs! The Watt Watchers team, comprised of Hollydale students, put their warning tickets in classrooms that leave lights on or waste energy in other ways, and the little savings are certainly adding up.

Click Here for Wholesale Pricing on Solar Electric and Solar Heating Systems!

Of all the types of solar power systems available today, solar water heating is one of the most effective so far. Below you will find some links to very cost-effective solar power systems, some of which are very efficient, like the thermosiphon solar water heater which does not even need a pump!

Nevertheless, we carry not only passive and active solar water heaters, but also monocrystalline and polycrystalline solar panels with or without trackers, BIPV (Building Integrated Photovoltaic Solar Electric laminates, tiles and other materials which integrate into your home’s design and blend with your rooftop), building integrated solar water heaters (not visible from the ground) and solar absorbtion air conditioners (not powered by solar – these solar air conditioners use a solar heated liquid to create cooling using a hydrophilic heat transfer component.)

40 Gallon Passive Solar Water Heater Uses the sun to preheat water for a standard electric or gas water heater. Save up to 20% of total household energy costs… Quoted	Thermosiphon Passive Solar Water Heater Solar Panels contain food grade glycol, which, when heated by the sun, rises up to circulate through the ceramic lined water tank, heating the water. Quoted
Rheem Tankless Gas Water Heater Eco-$mart offers a full line of energy efficient tankless gas water heaters. Rheem tankless water heaters deliver hot water on demand with a digital control system designed for highest safety and lowest energy use. Quoted	Building Integrated Solar Water Heating Installed under a metal roof during new construction or a re-roofing process, the system collects the sun’s energy as heat, which is then conducted by the metal roof into a proprietary collection system. Quoted

Pool Heating

Enersol Solar Pool Heating Kit The Enersol solar pool heating system is simple, clean, easy to install, virtually maintenance free, and most importantly – it works. Do-it-yourself installation kit available. List: $258.00 Eco-$mart Price: $215.00

Solar Attic Pool Heater Heat exchanger that cools your attic while heating your pool. No roof-mounted panels, efficient and quiet operation. Fully automatic system with controller.

Chilled-water and Cooling-tower AC Units

Click Here to Request Information on High Efficiency HVAC Systems and Retrofits

In a chilled-water system, the entire air conditioner lives on the roof or behind the building. It cools water to between 40 and 45 F (4.4 and 7.2 C). This chilled water is then piped throughout the building and connected to air handlers as needed. There is no practical limit to the length of a chilled-water pipe if it is well-insulated.

You can see in this diagram that the air conditioner (on the left) is completely standard. The heat exchanger lets the cold Freon chill the water that runs throughout the building.

Cooling tower

Cooling Towers
In all of the systems described earlier, air is used to dissipate the heat from the outside coil. In large systems, the efficiency can be improved significantly by using a cooling tower. The cooling tower creates a stream of lower-temperature water. This water runs through a heat exchanger and cools the hot coils of the air conditioner unit. It costs more to buy the system initially, but the energy savings can be significant over time (especially in areas with low humidity), so the system pays for itself fairly quickly.

Cooling towers come in all shapes and sizes. They all work on the same principle:

1. A cooling tower blows air through a stream of water so that some of the water evaporates.
2. Generally, the water trickles through a thick sheet of open plastic mesh.
3. Air blows through the mesh at right angles to the water flow.
4. The evaporation cools the stream of water.
5. Because some of the water is lost to evaporation, the cooling tower constantly adds water to the system to make up the difference.

Cooling towers

The amount of cooling that you get from a cooling tower depends on the relative humidity of the air and the barometric pressure.

For example, assuming a 95 F (35 C) day, barometric pressure of 29.92 inches (sea-level normal pressure) and 80-percent humidity, the temperature of the water in the cooling tower will drop about 6 degrees to 89 F (3.36 degrees to 31.7 C).

If the humidity is 50 percent, then the water temperature will drop perhaps 15 degrees to 80 F (8.4 degrees to 26.7 C).

If the humidity is 20 percent, then the water temperature will drop about 28 degrees to 67 F (15.7 degrees to 19.4 C). Even small temperature drops can have a significant effect on energy consumption.

To understand how the relative humidity and atmospheric pressure control the temperature drop in a cooling tower on any given day, check out USA Today: How a sling psychrometer works.

Whenever you walk behind a building and find a unit that has large quantities of water running through a plastic mesh, you will know you have found a cooling tower.

In many office complexes and college campuses, cooling towers and air conditioning equipment are centralized, and chilled water is routed to all of the buildings through miles of underground pipes

Bryant, Charles W., and Marshall Brain. “How Air Conditioners Work.” 01 April 2000. HowStuffWorks.com. <http://home.howstuffworks.com/ac.htm> 21 May 2008.

Note: Try our quick and free Online Energy Savings Calculator.

Electricity price inelasticity means that the laws of supply and demand are unlikely to cause electricity prices to drop in the future due to a lack of demand caused by rising prices. These higher prices will make it difficult to pass legislation encouraging the use of green energy. Consumption will probably not decrease and electrical power prices will continue to rise.

The Wall Street Journal puts it well in this quote below, taken directly from their article “Pain at the Plug: Fuel Costs Push Up Electricity Rates, Too

That raises some interesting questions. How easy a sell will climate-change bills like Lieberman-Warner be for Congress, when the bills will add between 11% and 64% to the cost of electricity which is already going vertical?

What will higher electricity prices do to demand for juice? When gasoline prices spiked in recent months, demand slumped for once. Normally, demand for gasoline is pretty inelastic in the short-term. Only sustained high gasoline prices lead to big changes, like more fuel-efficient cars, carpooling, and the like.

Demand for electricity is even less responsive to price than demand for gasoline is. Spot market rates for electricity aren’t posted across town, and you don’t pay the power bill every week.