UU church saves 1000 lbs co2/year, $150/year

Not yet, but we are getting there. Another church member and I went to Faith in Place to see about their program for saving the church energy and money. We both came back pretty pumped up that we could do this and let’s go. At that time the UU church in Park Forest was having a shortfall on their budget and could not put out the money up front to get it started.

I write for Green Sanctuary in the church newsletter and also have once a week care for the earth discussion group after service 9 times a year. Small church you can get as many positions as you want. Back to the budget, admittedly there was some frustration, but a turn and pivot was needed. My Green Sanctuary predecessor use to fund raise by selling a small lunch after church. That was my ticket for getting started. There was no resistance to doing this from the people that help the church work, so I brought a pot of chili and announced that the first thing to do was to replace the incandescent lights in what we call the sanctuary where we hold church services.

There are 3 rows of bulbs, 18 total on the ceiling with dimmers to vary the light output. Replacing these with LED bulbs which are very friendly to dimming would save electricity, but at a higher cost. Would it be worthwhile for the energy savings we would receive. From the environmental point of view, how much carbon dioxide would it save?

Assumptions:

18 100 watt incandescents

Replaced with LED 100 watt equivalent draws 19 watts, cost $25

Lights are on 20 hours per week or 1040 hours per year

Cost of electricity of 10 cents per kilowatt-hour

Common Wealth Edison emits 703 lbs co2 per megawatt-hour

Crunching the numbers I came up with,

Co2 savings of 1064 lbs. co2 per year

$ savings of $151.60/year

Payback of 3 years assuming labor is free. LED bulbs have about a 20 year life time.

Some sections of the country are almost all coal for producing electricity. This would put them in the 2000 lbs. co2 per mw-hr.

Crunching the numbers:

Co2 savings would be 3028 lbs. co2 per year.

This little exercise helps to show what can be done from the consumer side and from the utility side on cutting co2 and on saving money. Energy Efficiency is the low hanging fruit in our society just waiting for us to pluck it.