City of Powell, Ohio Undergoing LED Lighting Retrofit

On March 23,  Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland and the Ohio Department of Development named 28 projects to receive $15 million in grants as part of an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act program to promote energy efficiency.The City of Powell received $821,861 for a solar electric system and an LED lighting retrofit at the Municipal Building and improvements to its parks and recreation facility to save energy.
It is expected that the energy-efficient improvements will save at least $18,500 and up to $30,000 per year, he said.


The Municipal Building also will receive a major retrofit of its lights to support LED technology.

That includes the replacement of 315 fluorescent fixtures and 30 incandescent fixtures inside the building, as well as 33 high-pressure sodium fixtures around the outside of the building.

That part of the project will cost $160,369 and save on light-bulb replacement and maintenance, Fischer said.

"Lights go out (at the Municipal Building) every day. We have a service employee that goes around and replaces those lights, but once we buy the LED lights, we'll save on the cost of replacing lights, because those last years and years. We'll also be able to reassign that employee to something more productive, so it's a benefit to the city as a whole," he said.

The city's parks and recreation offices, 260 Village Park Drive, will receive upgrades such as better insulation, window and thermostat replacements and light sensors for outside lights, which together will cost about $38,000.

"It's an older structure and it needs a lot of upgrades," Fischer said of the parks and recreation facility.

The city was granted funding for most of its wish list. It would have liked to install a geothermal heating and cooling system in the Municipal Building, Fischer said, but that technology was not covered in the parameters of the grant.

"We'd like to get a completely energy-efficient building by using the technology available," he said, adding there may be another grant in the future that the city could pursue to continue those efforts.