New Canaan town, schools look to save energy, money

Written by Matt Dalen, Assistant Editor Sunday, 06 May 2012 00:00

Each year, the town of New Canaan spends millions of dollars heating and powering town and school buildings. On that scale of expense, even a small improvement in efficiency can yield significant savings. And for the past few years, town officials have been doing their best to increase the energy efficiency of all of the town buildings.

"I see this as a continuing effort by the town to identify areas where we can create efficiencies," First Selectman Rob Mallozzi III told the Advertiser. "... As long as we can demonstrate that we're getting them I'm going to keep moving in that direction."

Small steps

The majority of the energy efficiency projects have involved relatively small improvements upgrading lighting and heating fixtures, adding motion sensors that automatically turn off lights after a certain amount of time, and improving insulation, among other projects. Even a simple change like modifying the color of a light bulb can affect the amount of energy required to run a building.

But the savings from these can add up in one project, insulation and energy-efficient windows were added at the New Canaan Nature Center's director house, dropping that building's heating use from about 2,200 gallons per year to about 1,400 gallons, according to town Superintendent of Buildings and Fleet Bill Oestmann.

"That building had no insulation it was a good savings just right off the bat," Oestmann said. "The nature center, we've been having good success at."

Oestmann said that other buildings have seen smaller, but still significant, savings from the improvements. The parks department building saw a 20% drop in its electrical bill after upgrades, and he estimated the highway department offices' savings at about 12 to 15%.

School projects

After performing a variety of upgrades to their lighting, heating and cooling systems, the schools are in the final stages of a project to install building management systems in Saxe Middle School and the three elementary schools. The systems automate the schools' heating systems, automatically adjusting thermostats and air handling systems, which had previously been managed manually.

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New Canaan town, schools look to save energy, money