by Tim Murphy
1/10/25
Acknowledging the need to be good stewards of our earth, the opportunity that was acted upon over the last few years was to reduce the electricity consumption and to a lesser degree the cost throughout the St. Joseph’s Church and School campus.
Prior to 2020 the campus kilowatt usage was trending up and well over 30,000 kWh per RG&E billing period. With the help of a generous congregation member Kevin Sweeney at Kolvasky-Carr Electrical Supply Company we worked to replace old high wattage incandescent and fluorescent lighting with new lower
wattage mostly LED lamps/bulbs and fixtures. The Church and worship space and then the school gymnasium were the first replacements, the result was a noticeable usage and cost reduction. The second and larger opportunity was to assess and reduce the school building usage. Last summer (2024) we embarked to replace all the 360+ fixtures and 1,160 lamps/bulbs with new energy efficient and lower wattage LED replacements. We benefitted from a NYSERDA program that helps customers defer the cost by offering rebates for the new approved fixtures and lamps/bulbs. We solicited electrical contractors to provide a quote
for the labor, selected an electrician and ordered the hardware and coordinated the project to happen during the summer recess. Motion detectors were installed in the hallways and bathrooms, but not in the classrooms. We also recycled 5,540 (2 ½) tons of metal fixtures, wire and hardware mainly thanks to the generous volunteers who assisted with their time by dismantling, separating and handling of all the old lighting hardware. The project took about six weeks and the results were very well received!
Finally, with the new lighting in place we are seeing the usage trend head down, below 20,000 kWh per RG&E monthly billing. Please see the graph below with our usage trend, and note there are some spikes and valleys due to RG&E estimate reads. Also, the school is benefiting from better and more consistent
overhead lighting. This project had a good short-term return on investment, and we avoid frequent future requests to change bulbs.
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