BOYLE — When it comes to saving money and reducing its carbon footprint, the Village of Boyle council is on the right track. was updated on if they were on the right track.
At the April 6 regular meeting municipal energy manager Kevin Jacobs met with the council for an update, one of the three local council he works with, to explain what has taken place over the past year and to make suggestions for going forward.
“Minor things like door seals and window seals and lighting, maintenance on boilers and furnaces, making sure that schedules are in place to have that done every year or quarterly, whatever might be required for that kind of equipment,” said Jacobs during his comprehensive report. “Making sure temperature set points are appropriate on things like hot water tanks and whatnot.”
Jacobs provided information about each municipally-owned building he has surveyed in his first year on the job. Each first gets an energy scan to gather information so comparisons can be made to ensure any changes made are truly making a difference.
“That information gets compiled into what's called an EMP and the EMP is an energy management plan,” he said. “And so primarily that's used to schedule and track the ECM, the energy conservation measures, which were identified.”
One of the suggestions Jacobs made was for the village to invest in REALice, a system that allows ice makers to remove trapped air bubbles without heating by using water pressure to spin the water like a tornado and it can be mostly funded through a Municipal Climate Change Action Centre (MCCAC) grant, which is also the government department that covers 80 per cent of Jacobs' salary, the rest is split between the Village of Boyle, Town of Athabasca and Athabasca County.
“There is 18,000 kilowatt hours per year in electrical savings, 127 gigajoules are possible in natural gas savings, a greenhouse gas reduction of 16 tonnes per year,” said Jacobs. “Annual cost savings based on the bench marking report cost of energy was $4,494 and a simple payback of 2.03 years after the funding from the MCCAC direct program.”
The rebate is $27,400 with materials and installation estimated at $36,000 but after the rebate the cost to the village would be about $9,000.
Jacobs said he would also like to get municipal employees more involved in energy saving strategies and hopes to get representatives from the three municipalities to meet occasionally to share ideas on how each is saving energy and places they could do more.
“It's important to try and keep energy savings in front of people's minds and be able to track it,” he said. “(Boyle public works Supt.) Paul (Clyburn) and I have in place for a couple of the buildings now, preventative maintenance checklists and then some schedules in place for making sure your equipment is being serviced properly.”
Jacobs reported across the three municipalities, at the end of the first year, 4,988 tons of greenhouse gases was released every year with a target of reducing it by 8.7 per cent.
“That was set aspirationally I think,” said Jacobs. “The MCCAC program is hoping for a 5 per cent target ... 437 tons. CO2 reduction achieved so far was 44 tons, planned is another 214 (tons) and an achieved savings per year of 4.5 per cent overall.”
