Ann Arbor is getting started in two public
ways to conserve and generate electricity through installing LED light bulbs in
streetlights throughout downtown and kicking off its Solar America Cities campaign.
The two projects, which would be
centrepiece developments in most other Metro Detroit suburbs, are helping
burnish the Ann Arbor's reputation as the metro area's leader in environmental
activism.
The city plans to start replacing all of
its downtown streetlights with LED bulbs later this month. The $640,000
investment will replace bulbs in more than 1,000 street lights and is expected
to pay for itself through maintenance and electricity savings within 3.8 years.
The lights, commonly used in traffic and
tail lights, require less than half of the energy of a normal light bulb and
last eight years longer than the normal two-year lifespan. The city is also
looking into replacing all of its streetlights with LED lights. The current
replacement program will cut the city's electric bill for those lights in half
and reduce greenhouse gas
emissions by 2,425 tons of CO2 annually, the equivalent of taking 400 cars off
the road for a year.
"This initial
installation should save the city more than $100,000 per year and reduce annual
greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 294 tons of CO2," says Ann Arbor
Mayor John Hieftje. "Our plan is to retrofit all downtown lights with LED
alternatives over the next two years."
While the LED lights
help the city conserve electricity, city officials are working on promoting
solar energy programs that will help produce more electricity. The U.S. Dept of Energy
named Ann Arbor a Solar America City earlier this summer, awarding it a $200,000
grant that will help fund a $432,000 community-wide program to promote solar
energy.
Most of the parts of
the program are part of an educational effort to get more residents and
businesses to implement solar power systems. The city kicked off those efforts
earlier this week.
"Through this
solar grant we're going to be doing a lot of solar surveys," says David
Konkle, municipal energy coordinator for Ann Arbor. "Those surveys will
look at buildings and see what their potential is."
Last year Mayor Hieftje and the City
Council set a goal of the city receiving 20 percent of its energy from
renewable sources by 2015. Since then, the city's Energy Office has
developed a comprehensive plan, the Ann Arbor Solar City Partnership, which
includes public education, solar installer training, demonstration projects,
market incentives and regulatory support.
Source: City of Ann Arbor
Writer: Jon Zemke
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