County to look at energy efficiency
Posted By J.T. on July 2, 2009
The Cass County Public Facilities Energy Efficiency and Conservation Audit and Internship Program is well under way this summer in Harrisonville, Missouri. Presiding Commissioner Gary Mallory announced that a team of six local interns along with two field team leaders have set out on a mission to make the area’s public buildings more energy efficient. Commissioner Brian Baker said, “We expect the work of these teams to uncover significant opportunities to conserve energy. This is a critical time for conducting this effort as we all expect energy prices to continue to rise in the future.” The interns are: Mike Chouinard, a Cleveland native currently attending Ottawa University, Jesse Richardson from West Line, home from Avila University, Venessa Lee of Cleveland, a recent Pittsburg State University graduate,Lee Pemberton of Raymore who attends Longview Community College, Cati Brill of Harrisonville and Lezlea Hand of Pleasant Hill who will both be starting their first college semester this fall at Longview Community College.
“The ‘Green Team’ interns are local college students home for the summer who are excited to take advantage of this great opportunity to learn about energy conservation, help their communities save money on energy costs and have a summer job”, said Commissioner “Bill” Cook.
The program was made possible through a partnership between the Cass County Commission and engineering consultants, Universal Asset Management, LLC (UAM) based in Harrisonville, MO with funding from the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The program began with a three day informative orientation introducing the team to the development and goals of the project. They were trained in how to conduct an energy audit on local public buildings along with supervising professionals. The team is looking for any possible conservation improvements to conserve energy. These changes include converting current inefficient light fixtures and bulb types to new innovative light sources, plumbing fixtures with their low flow equivalents; replacing appliances with energy star units and retrofitting heating and cooling systems with new energy saving high efficiency models.
The field team gathers data at local county and city buildings, and then the office interns formulate the data, gather past utility information, research methodology, calculate potential energy and cost savings and together with UAM’s engineering staff will present their findings and recommendations. A report will be issued that will include all findings, conservation recommendations and calculations on how much energy and money can be saved if recommended changes are made. The recommendations will also present each community a roadmap illustrating how the savings can be used to finance recommended improvements. These improvements will provide long term energy savings for local governments and create job opportunities in the county.
The “Green Team” has audited approximately 35 buildings in Harrisonville, Peculiar, Freeman, East Lynne and Cleveland. There are many more local buildings on the list to be audited in the upcoming months including those in Belton, Archie, Drexel, Raymore, Pleasant Hill and other surrounding areas. The team will continue their mission through August 15 finding ways to save water, energy and money throughout our community. In addition to mining savings through conservation, the effort is also exploring opportunities for local communities to generate energy. Small scale renewable energy systems are being evaluated, where economically viable these systems may also become part of the team’s recommendation to local communities.
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