Onondaga County Executive Nicholas Pirro says the Energy Performance Project saves $647,000 a year.Energy upgrades to Onondaga County [1] government facilities are going a long way toward fighting climate change - and saving taxpayers a bundle as well.

In 2003, county leaders inked an energy performance contract [2] with Carrier Corp. [3] in an effort to spot inefficiencies in various facilities, from small storage buildings to multi-story office complexes. When completed later this year, the contract is expected to permanently reduce the annual energy use in county-owned properties by 11 million kilowatt-hours of electricity and 1.0 therms of natural gas. That translates to a 7 percent reduction in electricity use and 22 percent reduction in natural gas demand - enough to heat 670 homes and power another 1,160. As a result of the efforts to date, the county cut $1.3 million from its operating budget for 2007.

Those cost savings have been in the making for a long time. The Onondaga County Citizens' Energy Committee, at the request of the county executive, developed an Energy Initiative and Action Plan in 1996. Its goal was to reduce energy usage and costs by 25 percent by eliminating waste, upgrading infrastructure, developing emergency energy plans, smarter purchasing, anticipating price fluctuations and studying use trends.

Then four years ago, Carrier Corp. began its work by auditing and implementing changes at 25 of the county's largest energy users, which account for 80 percent of the total consumption. Specific upgrades were selected in cooperation with county officials, and focus on changes where savings would be the greatest. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority [4] reimbursed partial costs for the audit, which was completed last year, as well as site-specific changes.

The greatest savings were in lighting; old fixtures were replaced with more efficient ones, energy-saving bulbs and ballasts were added and sensors installed to turn off lights automatically. The county's work in this area garnered an award for excellence from the Energy Planning Network.

"The county's Energy Performance Project, of which the lighting initiative is one component, has proven most successful with the lighting project alone realizing an annual savings of 6.6 million kilowatt hours of electricity which could power 1,100 Central New York homes each year, said County Executive Nicholas Pirro. "This program has saved County taxpayers approximately $647,000 annually in reduced energy consumption."

Heating, ventilation and air conditioning improvements - like replacing inefficient boilers and better controls - saved another $489,496.