The City’s Public Works Building Services team recently worked with OEO Energy Solutions (OEO) to take advantage of a grant program offered through Ameren. This grant allowed the City to obtain 6,900 new 4-ft LED lamps at no cost. This will allow the City to replace all existing 4-ft fluorescent lamps that currently light up the City Building, Public Works, Police, and Fire facilities, as well as the Hill Street Parking Deck. Changing out the bulbs will help the City take another step toward the City Council’s guiding principle to “protect the well-being of future generations by advancing Environmental Sustainability.”
OEO also guided staff through the process of utilizing Ameren grants to subsidize most of the installation costs for the lamps. Staff are currently working with an installer to swap out all the fluorescent lamps at the City Building and at Public Works. The Fire Stations are slated for late spring/early summer. Building Services staff are currently replacing the lamps in the Police Department. When the Police Department is complete, staff will move on and replace the lamps in the Hill Street Parking Deck.
There are lots of benefits to replacing fluorescent lights with LED lighting. LEDS use 56% less energy (14 watts vs 32 watts), produce less heat (requiring less air conditioning to maintain building temperatures), last much longer (50,000 service hours vs 14,400 service hours), and do not contain mercury.
In addition to supporting the City’s environmental sustainability goals, this project will save the City considerable money now and in the future:
- Thanks to a grant, the City procured 6,900 LED lamps at zero cost. The retail cost of the lamps is $65,550.
- Thanks to a grant, the City paid a subsidized installation fee of $2 per fixture. The full price is $25 per fixture.
- Assuming the average use of each light is 12 hours a day and used 365 day a year, this project will result in an estimated annual savings of 549,996 kWh of electricity. That’s an estimated annual cost savings of $27,200!
- The average Illinois household uses 8,796 kWh of electricity per year, so the City could realize an energy savings equivalent to 62.5 homes worth of electricity annually.