In April Sustainable Connections finalized a contract with
the City of Bellingham to provide Resource Conservation Manager (RCM) services
to 41 city owned buildings. The RCM program was created by Puget Sound Energy
(PSE) to help large commercial energy users keep their consumption down and the
Community Energy Challenge is contracted to provide this service to eligible CEC
participants. This arrangement with the City of Bellingham is the end result of
months of discussions between Sustainable Connections and the City about how to
assist with reducing energy usage in city facilities as part of the Bellingham
Energy Prize. The Bellingham Energy Prize is the local effort to win the national
Georgetown Energy Prize competition. Currently Bellingham is tied for 4th
in this competition which will award $5 million to the community that reduces significant
amounts energy and best educates and encourages energy conservation in
residences, schools, and municipal buildings. Since commercial buildings are
not part of this competition, working with municipal buildings is a chance for
the commercial side of the Community Energy Challenge to participate and
showcase their abilities!
The RCM program aims to maintain or improve occupant comfort
while implementing long term energy savings that target overlooked sources of
inefficiency, and will create a detailed picture of how energy is used
throughout city owned buildings. The overall process will involve an initial
site assessment to analyze building systems and meeting with occupants to learn
about the building’s operations, providing a report detailing the results of
the assessment, and follow-up support to assist in implementation of measures.
All buildings in the program will also be tracked through energy management software
that will allow the city to better monitor and analyze energy usage. It is
expected that along with reducing energy, the project will also result in
improvements to building systems and will have the additional benefit of lowering
maintenance costs. While the analysis will be completed by Sustainable
Connections staff, personnel from the city Public Works department will also
take part in the assessments and will assist with gathering utility data and
providing access to the buildings. Overall, this project is part of the larger
objective of helping the city achieve its greenhouse gas reduction goal, and
will also address water usage and waste management.
The first assessments began in the middle of May and have
initially targeted higher energy use buildings and buildings that have other
operational needs. At this point the Lightcatcher Museum, Whatcom Museum, Syre
Center, and Bellingham Sportsplex have had assessments performed, and efforts
to act on the recommendations are expected to begin shortly. The program is
aiming to perform about one assessment per week, and expects to perform
assessments in all 41 buildings in the program by the end of the year. All
members of the energy efficiency team are participating in the process, and
everyone is looking forward to seeing the first energy reduction projects get
under way!
