Energy Efficiency in the Adirondacks Supporting the Adirondack Region in its effort to reduce energy costs

Topics For Today  Purpose/LEC Intro  How can energy inventories and benchmarking help your town?  Adirondack success stories  Overview of energy use in the Adirondacks

Town  Goal: Create a goal Energy independence for the Adirondacks within 20 years  Why is this important?  Every $1 spent locally creates $14 in economic activity in our communities

Why Conduct an Inventory and Benchmark Energy Usage?  What is an Inventory?  What does an inventory report tell you?  Why is it important?

What can an inventory tell you?  General Recommendation: “Evaluate ways to reduce fuel usage with vehicle fleet. This can be done by analyzing routes, usage, and a strict anti-idling policy.”  Specific Recommendation: “ From initial review of the data in this report, it appears that the Town Hall may represent the best opportunity for energy savings among the Town of Long Lake’s municipal buildings. It is the most expensive and shows opportunities for behavioral changes as well as fuel source improvements.”

Inventory Report Example

Energy Inventory: Adirondack Park $1.5 billion per year spent on energy in the Park

What we spend as a region on energy for residences Residential Cost Per Year LP Gas: $30 million Electricity: $82 million Fuel Oil: $130 million LP Gas: $3.05/gal Electricity: $0.17/ kWh Fuel Oil: $3.63/gal $189 million per year

If we reduced what we spent on energy by 30% we could afford to…  Provide health care for 47,000 families  Send 8,000 students to a four year University  Provide 20 Million low income weatherization kits  Brew 13 million gallons of homemade beer  Buy 30,000 new snowmobiles

Success Stories  Lake Placid  Reduced peak load energy usage by 5 MW  Change lights  Energy Star Appliances  Rate Changes

Possible Funding Sources  NYSERDA-FlexTech, Alternative Fuel-Vehicles Program, Financial Assistance Programs, EmPower NY  NYPA-Energy Services Program  National Grid–Energy Equipment Rebates  NYSEG-Ca$hback program  RGGI

Maria Leonardi Clean Air-Cool Planet/ADKCAP Fellow