Department of Public Works
City of Champaign, Illinois
Ioannis Brilakis
University of Illinois, Champaign
The city of Champaign Department of Public Works is responsible for maintaining
traffic control systems, streets, streetlights and the sewer system. It
is also responsible for maintaining the local City buildings such as the
City Hall, police and fire station buildings. The intern’s main task
was to conduct energy and material audits at various department locations.
Results:
The intern was able to recommend several money saving ideas that included:
·
Researching an available material listed on the Industrial Material Exchange
Service (an Illinois EPA publication). The listing was rock salt, an industrial
by-product of a facility from Memphis. The salt is presently not available,
but if it becomes available in the future, this would have the potential
to save the city over $80,000 per year.
- Identifying calculation errors on past energy bills. The city received
a credit of $77,000 from the power company to rectify the problem.
In addition, the city will receive over $9,600 per year due to
this correction.
- Recommending that the city purchase rather than lease Class B streetlights.
This could save over $100,000 per year.
- Recommending the use of electronic ballasts in streetlight systems.
Highly inefficient ballasts were identified as the cause of high wattage
consumption
in most streetlight systems. This change could save $16,000 per
year.
The intern also identified the following energy use reductions in the
Public Works Building that could result in saving the city over $7,500.
Opportunities
at the City Department Building could save the city $11,000 annually.
Those recommendations include:
- Installing a natural gas-engine driven HVAC system to take advantage
of the free natural gas the city receives with its franchise agreement.
- Utilizing heat from the natural gas-engine driven system to heat water.
- Reducing the amount of lighting in areas that are over lighted.
- Replacing the few incandescent lights with compact fluorescent lights.
- Installing exit signs with LED lights instead of incandescent lights.
The Police Department Building is only four years old and has both efficient
lighting and HVAC units. This building was designed for a much higher occupancy
rate. The intern recommended that with the use of zone heating and cooling
and motion detectors for the lighting, they still have the potential to
save over $22,000 per year.
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