Wellesley Town Hall To Shut Down Friday Afternoon To Fight The Power

If you've ever wondered how much power is really wielded within the offices of Town Hall at 525 Washington St., you're about to get your answer.

You'll have to live without town services for part of tomorrow afternoon to get that information, though. Town Hall will shut down after 1 p.m. Friday for the "Power up, power down" energy use test, said Christopher Ketchen, deputy director at the Wellesley Selectmen's office.

"It seems the least likely time to have a public impact," Ketchen said. 

In Town Hall, the Wellesley Free Library and the Wellesley Middle School, Ketchen said, there are monitors placed throughout the building that measure the total energy use of each structure. The reading is measured in kilowatt hours, he said. "We're going to be using that tool to measure how much shutting down various categories of equipment lowers energy consumption," Ketchen said. The Town Hall will be the only building participating in the shut-down measurement, he added.

The test will begin with a measurement of the building's energy use with everything on. Then, they'll measure how much energy is saved when they shut off all of a certain category of equipment, such as copiers, refrigerators and bubblers (water fountains) .

The test will help identify the biggest drains on energy at Town Hall, he said, which the town can then use to modify its use and save energy. The test is part of efforts to meet a goal set at last year's Town Meeting - that the town reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 10 percent below 2007 levels by 2013.

"The municipal authorities are trying to achieve 20 percent (reduction) by that time period," said Katherine Gibson of the Green Ribbon Study Committee, which is charged with helping the town plan to reach those goals. She said the energy monitors are part of a "Smart Meter" pilot program at the three buildings. An energy test isn't planned for either of the other places soon, she said, but the data from Town Hall can be applied to them later. Meanwhile, she said, the information from the overall measure of energy at each building is useful in identifying how much overall energy is being used, and when.

The Town Hall test will also help to identify "phantom loads" - things using energy the Town Hall staff might not know are on in the first place. Then, Ketchen said, they can turn those off.

"Oh, very," said Gibson when asked if she was excited about the impending energy measurement at Town Hall. "I think it's a great, great project that will have multiple benefits." For instance, she said, the data can be used to educate people about energy use and make people more aware of how their actions use up energy.