B.C.'s Kilowatt Hours Cut By Power Smart Ideas
In British Columbia, Power Smart initiatives have helped to cut 1,950 million KWhrs of electricity
use each year. A big part of these savings comes from Power Smart's involvement with its
industrial customers.
By working with established industries or new facilities as they are being built, Power Smart can recommend where savings can be found. By replacing old lighting, fans and motors with new high efficiency products, electrical use can be dramatically reduced.
When General Motors Place opened Sept. 21, 1995, as the city of Vancouver's newest sports and entertainment arena, it was already a highly efficient building. The home of the Vancouver Canucks and the NBA Grizzlies, saves more than 153 million KWhrs of electricity when compared to a similar structure built without energy efficient planning.
Energy-saving features include sophisticated lighting fixtures and systems and high-efficiency motors and variable speed drives. Efficiency measures are also helped by the fact that 95 per cent of the building is heated by steam.
For a mill in Port Alberni undergoing a modernization program, Power Smart recommended using one high efficiency 300 hp motor instead of two 250 hp motors. New equipment in the plant has cut energy use by 950,000 KWhrs of electricity per year.
Changes to lighting, heating, ventilation and air conditioning at the shared facilities for B.C.'s Children's Hospital and B.C. Women's Hospital and Health Centre have saved electricity, natural gas and taxpayer dollars.
The major changes made to the hospitals' lighting systems actually produced a cooling load reduction which helped the air-conditioner retrofit.
B.C. Hydro's Power Smart boasts an impressive list of industrial customers who are saving money because of energy efficiency. They include: