Rebate helps Capitol save energy costs

Secretary of State Mark Martin received a $16,000 rebate from Entergy Arkansas for installing energy-efficient electrical devices at the Capitol that will reduce energy use by about 7.25 percent, his office said Wednesday.

Martin’s spokesman Alex Reed said the one-time rebate helped offset the $22,382 the office spent on the upgrades.

“It was relatively small upgrades that we did, but overall it turned out making a big difference,” Reed said.

Included were new light fixtures and ballasts for much of the building. (Ballasts are devices that regulate electric current.) LED and compact fluorescent lamps were also installed. Entergy spokesman Sally Graham said the improvements also included motion sensing lighting controls.

The upgrades will save the state 183,527 kilowatt-hours each year, Reed said.

A kilowatt-hour is the unit of measurement for electrical energy roughly equal the power supplied by one kilowatt in one hour. A kilowatt is 1,000 watts.

The Capitol used about 2,531,872 kilowatt-hours in 2011, Reed said.

Reed said the office pays an average of $0.07 to $0.08 per kilowatt-hour used in the building, so the upgrades will save between $12,847 and $14,682 each year.

The new materials were installed between late August and mid-October, Reed said. The rebate will go to the Capitol Facilities portion of the secretary of state’s budget.

Graham said the rebate was through Entergy’s Commercial and Industrial Prescriptive Program.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 9 on 12/13/2012

Upcoming Events