Valley groups tap incentives to reduce energy use

HADLEY - The Western Massachusetts Food Bank is saving $15,000 a year after installing high-efficiency lighting fixtures. The Agawam Department of Public Works replaced 425 fixtures, saving $23,000 annually. Deerfield Elementary School's new gym lighting resulted in $2,500 a year in savings. Hager Brothers dairy farm in Colrain put a new "variable frequency drive" on its milk vacuum pump, saving $5,000 a year.

All these energy improvements were made using financial incentives from Western Massachusetts Electric Co., said Bob Dvorchik, who works in outreach for the utility.

"Together we can find ways to use electricity more efficiently," he said at a workshop Thursday for municipal officials. "Greening Your Community: Leading by Example" was coordinated by the Center for Ecological Technology in Northampton.

More than 20 cities and towns sent representatives to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Office in Hadley, where the event was held.

Northampton Mayor Clare Higgins said that when she was driving to the workshop, she used her new solar-powered speaker phone. She outlined Northampton's energy conservation moves and said the city is about to start selling electricity back to the grid from methane gas produced at the landfill.

Higgins also said she wants to make Northampton's new police station a "green building."

"It's such a critical part of being a model for the rest of the community, but it's also being prudent with citizens' money," she said.

Dvorchik said that municipal officials should "go on a search-and-destroy mission for any existing incandescent lightbulbs," replacing them with compact fluorescents. WMECO has money earmarked for conservation of energy in lighting, air conditioning and electric motors, he said.

The utility will send a representative to a building to walk through it and outline opportunities to reduce energy use, Dvorchik said. He will then discuss appropriate technology and eligibility for incentive funding, he said.

Bay State Gas also provides incentives for reducing consumption, said Derek Buchler, manager of Bay State's energy efficiency department. The utility provides energy audits and equipment rebates, he said.

"It's cheaper to invest in energy efficiency than in new infrastructure," Buchler said.

He cited a regional high school that put in a new boiler costing $195,000, and because of energy savings and utility incentives, it paid for itself in 2.9 years. A college gym spent $15,000 on heating improvements that had a 2.8-year "payback" time, he said.

Amherst will come close to meeting its goal of 30 percent energy use reductions by 2009 largely on the basis of new, more efficient power plants at the University of Massachusetts and Amherst College, said Peggy MacLeod of the Center for Ecological Technology.

The organization managed to get 276 households to sign up for a wind energy program, which will result in $33,000 the town can spend on energy improvements, she said.

Amherst's plans for the money include solar electricity panels for the Hitchcock Center for the Environment, solar trash compactors that will reduce garbage trucks' trips to the landfill, and helping to pay the salary of the energy conservation coordinator, she said.

The workshop also heard from Rosie Heidkamp, of Wendell, the moving force behind that small town's extensive energy conservation program.

Wendell's municipal buildings were leaky, uninsulated and dilapidated three years ago, she said. It now has a new energy-efficient town office building and public library that has solar-electric panels and spends only $2,800 a year on heat, she said.

Mayor Higgins injected some humor into the process of learning about energy efficiency from what others have done.

"When you're a teenager it's called cheating, but when you're an adult, it's called 'best practices,'" she said.