In the biggest step forward towards fulfilling Fairfield’s Go-Green Strategic Plan; the City Council voted unanimously last week to support matching funding for a $485,000 project to improve the energy efficiency of city owned buildings, including City Hall, Public Works, the Library, the Recreational Center, Waterworks, Fire Department and Wastewater.

“We’re excited,” reports Mayor Ed Malloy. “This project puts our Sustainability Plan in action and sets the city in a position to lead by example. The grant funds will save our budget nearly $90,000 year in energy costs by improving energy efficiency and reducing energy waste.”

Councilperson Martha Norbeck lead the project by working with Alliant Energy to perform energy audits for the city buildings.  You can read the details of the energy audits here.  Note, the Law Center is excluded from the project since it is a County facility.

A breakdown of the costs:

• $485,000 – Total estimated cost of making improvements to facilities.
• $200,000 – Approximate contribution from City of Fairfield towards project costs.
• $118,000 – Estimated rebates for improvements according to Alliant Energy.
• $162000 – Federal Stimulus funding approved by The Iowa Office of Energy Independence.

A breakdown of the savings:

• $387,000 – Approximate annual energy costs of Electric and Natural Gas for facilities receiving improvements as part of the program.
• $179,623 – Annual energy costs for the biggest spender, Waterworks.
• $64,288 – Annual energy costs for Rec Center.
• $85,300 – Projected annual savings in energy costs after improvements are completed.
• 22% – Reduction in total annual energy costs for all facilities after improvements are completed.
• 43% – Biggest single reduction in annual energy costs, the Rec Center.
• 7 – Number of years to payback project costs based on projected savings.

Thanks to Rashmi Sinha’s blog I just found out about Thirst, a masterpiece of information presentation. Thirst, created by Jeff Brenman, won the World’s Best Presentation Contest. The relevance to Fairfield is somewhat oblique, but very important. I have never experienced a sense of scarcity with water here. When I first moved here (having lived in the 3rd world most of my life) it was quite impressive that there was no thought of water conservation. In the early 90’s when I went out to LA for the first time I learned about rationing, but it was very localized, and that sensibility has faded away (in spite of a much more looming water shortage out west). Read the full story