An HOA’s Look at Lighting Energy Efficiency By Lynn Boergerhoff, Woodstock Townhome Association
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oodstock Homeowners Association has worked with the Center for Energy and Environment (CEE) to develop a plan to replace aging exterior garage lights with energyefficient LED lights. We expect to save money through utility rebates that reduce the installation costs by about one third and through expected energy savings of more than 80%. Here’s how our process played out over 6 months, from our first contact with CEE to our first Board meeting discussion. Woodstock HOA is a townhome-style condominium association in Bloomington, Minnesota. Woodstock has 67 buildings with either three or four family units in each building for a total of 227 units built in nine “Sections” from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s. Each Section maintains garage lights mounted over its building’s garages. Please refer to the Woodstock Common Area Lighting map below.
The Center for Energy and Environment (CEE) has, since 1989, provided a range of practical and cost-effective programs to help Minnesota homeowners, businesses, nonprofits and governments reduce energy waste and save money. CEE services include audit and diagnostics to evaluate current conditions, preparation of energy and cost saving projections and administering energy savings initiatives. CEE and Xcel Energy partner to administer certain rebate programs. Our goals were to maintain the right amount of lighting for safety and security, reduce lighting utility and maintenance costs, and maintain attractive lighting acceptable to homeowners. In addition to CEE, we found a number of helpful resources listed at the end of this article. Like many things is life, more light is not necessarily better light. In general, well-designed exterior lighting promotes safety, saves energy and money, is not intrusive to neighbors, reflects an association’s character and reduces risk to residents and wildlife. Safety is a special
Woodstock HOA Common Area Lighting 1 3
Garage Light Pole Light 2 Section
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concern in driving and parking areas and in certain walking areas. The process began with an email to CEE requesting a lighting energy audit. We were soon contacted by Charlie Ketchum, a lighting specialist, who worked with us throughout this project. Ketchum visited our Association to meet with representatives of our Board. He explained that he would conduct a detailed audit of our common area lighting then recommend options to replace our lights with LED lighting that would reduce energy use and cost and would be eligible for one or more energy rebate programs. First, he established our energy use history by reviewing the previous year’s utility bills. This review included energy consumption and costs of operating our common area lighting for both the garage-mounted lights and pole lights throughout our association. Ketchum next opened and inspected about 80% of our 52 garage-mounted lights and several of the pole lights to identify the type of bulbs installed. Two of the 52 garagemounted lights had been replaced with LED light fixtures and were excluded from the lighting analysis. Our common area lighting is controlled by photo light sensors that turn lights on at dusk and off at daylight. (Pictured on page 10 — an original garagemounted light fixture.) Although bulbs of varying wattage were discovered in the existing fixtures that Ketchum inspected — ranging from 100W to 250W - the overwhelming majority were 150W Metal Halide. The fixtures themselves were identical, but bulb replacement over the years led to this inconsistency in the type of bulb being used. Because we wanted to determine an adequate replacement fixture for every unit, we focused on identifying an LED replacement equivalent to the
Energy Efficiency continued on page 10 November | December 2013
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