Madison Heights

Lighting upgrades conserve power in city buildings

By Andy Kozlowski
C & G Staff Writer

MADISON HEIGHTS — Leaving lights on when nobody’s around is tantamount to flushing money down the toilet — it might not cost much in any one room or hallway, but it all adds up.

The all-new lighting upgrades Madison Heights is adding to its Senior Citizen Center, Police Department, Department of Public Services and City Hall should help rectify the situation. In most buildings, the upgrades include occupancy sensors, which turn themselves off when no motion is detected in the proximity for a set period of time.

“The (best) examples are the hallways, restrooms, offices and other smaller rooms, where sensor use over time will help us realize energy savings,” said Deputy City Manager Benjamin Myers.

Approved by City Council back in December, and as of press time, scheduled for completion before the end of January, the project is one of several backed by a $124,061 sum awarded to the city from the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Program.

The Michigan Suburbs Alliance and Southeast Michigan Regional Energy Office (SEMREO) helped Madison Heights secure the federal funds by identifying five potential projects to fulfill requirements of the grant.

These include the lighting upgrades at Rosie’s Park and Huffman Park ball fields, completed last spring; the HVAC unit for the information technology server room at City Hall, now complete; façade replacement at City Hall, also complete; and replacement of the west doors of City Hall, though this last one was dropped, and the $3,210 redirected to the building lighting upgrades instead.

“Being able to complete our building lighting and sensor upgrades, and correct the longstanding issues of our City Hall computer room HVAC and City Hall façade is a significant step toward meeting our energy goals,” Myers said. “In these difficult economic times when the city is undertaking significant budgetary reductions, being able to secure and utilize the EECBG grant has been a great benefit to facilitate work that would otherwise not have been funded.”

SEMREO puts the combined estimated payback period of the EECBG projects at 3.7 years, meaning the energy savings in that span of time will pay for the projects in full.

To get the most bang for the buck, the city was careful picking the right contractor for the job. Birmingham-based Energy Sciences is handling the municipal building lighting upgrades to the tune of $94,705. Proposals from three separate companies were considered, and SEMREO deemed Energy Sciences the only qualified bidder.

“Energy Sciences’ pricing was more reasonable, and it was evident what product was being supplied,” said Debra Jensen, lead energy analyst at SEMREO. “This allowed the city to fully understand what they were getting for the overall cost of the project.”

To achieve better energy efficiency, Myers said, they asked the contractor to perform $38,573 worth of additional lighting upgrades beyond the scope of work covered by the EECBG grant. This additional work is funded by two sources: $31,148 in personnel savings in the water and sewer fund for the DPS portion of the project, and an expected DTE rebate of $7,185 for the energy projects.

Altogether, this and other EECBG projects will help the city advance toward its council-adopted Millennial Mayors Congress’ regional energy savings initiative to reduce energy consumption from non-renewable sources to 25 percent below 2005 levels by 2015.

“We have made a good start toward this goal,” Myers said. “We will continue to track our consumption as we near the 2015 target year.”

You can reach C & G Staff Writer Andy Kozlowski at akozlowski@candgnews.com or at (586)498-1104.