Facilities Management
From the Energy Manager
Great job Pima County employees! On December 15, 2008, Pima County started the new heating ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) run time scheduling. As of December 15, all County buildings HVAC systems (with the exception of emergency service facilities) began operating only from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm Monday through Friday.
The memo of 17 November 2008, from the Facilities Management Director, and approved by the County Administrator, instructed all County employees to remove personal fans, heaters, refrigerators coffee pots and microwaves.
As a result of all of our sacrifices, we are well on our way to saving over a half a million dollars a year in electrical costs. Compared to the month of January last year, this month of January we are saving almost a thousand dollars a day within the downtown governmental complex.
Along with our energy conservation, Pima County is well on its way toward renewable energy production. Solon will build and operate a one (1) megawatt photovoltaic farm at the Roger Road Wastewater Treatment Plant. With innovative financing and government energy credits Pima County has no up front costs, and will enjoy energy savings for years to come.
Pima County and its employees are on the forefront of sustainable and renewable energy programs. Through our concerted efforts and working together we will be the example of environmental stewardship, and enjoy energy savings along the way.
Frequently Asked Questions:
• Should I turn my lights off when I leave my office?
The less time you spend with the lights on, the more energy you save. A normal bulb will use 60 watts of energy per hour. One could conserve nearly 22,000 watts of energy per year by switching off one bulb for one hour every day; enough to power one month worth of TV viewing.
Turn off the lights if you are the last to leave a room. Turning lights on consumes no more electricity than they use when already lit.
Fluorescent lights have a finite number of starts built into the ballast. In order to wear out the stats before the rest of the bulb burnt out you would need to turn your lights on and off 20 to 50 times a day. The equivalent of 20,000 cats running past the motion sensor in your back yard.
• How is giving up my coffee maker and fridge at my workstation going to make a difference in the large scheme of things?
While one or two of these devices would not make a dent in the nearly $ 14 million that Pima County pays a year for electricity per year, the combined effort of all of us pulling together and chipping in will make a big difference.
Power plants use an average of 25 gallons of water in the process of making one kilowatt of power. One kilowatt of power is the amount of energy used to light a 100 watt bulb for ten hours. The average household uses 1,100 kilowatts of electricity a month. This comes to 27,000 gallons of water used by the power company to produce the wattage. By comparison, families of four (4) go through about 9,000 gallons of water a month for household uses such as washing clothes, flushing toilets, and showering. One can see the significant savings to our environment in water, as well as the amount of carbon dioxide generated that will be saved.
• Does leaving the A/C on at a preset temperature save money versus turning it off when not in use thereby creating wide daily temperature variations?
While it is true that for a typical A/C at home the comparative costs of setting the thermostat to a preset temperature, say 75 degrees, and allowing the ambient temperature to rise above the 75 degrees before turning on the A/C would result in a higher energy bill. One typically pays somewhere around $150.00 a month for their home electricity during the summer months. This comes to about $5.00 a day. The downtown high rise buildings spend around $266.00 a day for the electricity to run their heating and cooling system. This is just the electricity for the HVAC; it does not include the lights and the outlets and all of the other components in the building that uses electricity. The HVAC systems in County buildings are designed to change out the air in the work spaces approximately four (4) times an hour. This means it will take an hour or less to get to the set point once the HVAC is turned on.
The bottom line is that it is cheapest to operate an electrical system when the system is off. Pima County will save in excess of 500,000.00 dollars a year in HVAC electrical usage cost for the downtown governmental center for example by not running the HVAC on the weekends, and by running only from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm. This is only the electrical costs associated with the HVAC; there will be more savings as a result of not running the lights etc.
• What is the acceptable temperature range in my office?
There is no OSHA regulation or building code requirement that stipulates that an employer must provide a certain range of temperature for their employees. Pima County uses 78 degrees in the summer and 67 degrees in the winter. The temperature can vary three (3) to five (5) degrees either way. Some of our buildings were built in the 1960s’. These buildings have floors that can vary by 10 degrees from one office to another. If you feel that you are not able to perform your job due to the temperature at your assigned work space, please inform your supervisor.
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