Introduction
Eureka Floor Carpet One sells floor coverings and performs installments to homes and commercial businesses across Humboldt County. Carpet One experiences customer visits sporadically throughout the day, sometimes several hours or just a few minutes apart, so lights must remain on constantly during business hours. Though Carpet One receives fewer customers than other retail businesses, customers spend more money fulfilling larger jobs.
Before the lighting retrofits, Carpet One experimented with motion-sensing switches to save energy. Even though Carpet One was saving Kilowatt-hours, they were having to replace light bulbs more frequently, which became expensive. Before the installment of electronic ballasts during the lighting upgrade, Carpet One had older ballasts, which smoked when they needed to be replaced. Each time these older ballasts stopped working, an electrician would have to fix them one at a time. Participating in the Redwood Coast Energy Authority lighting upgrade, Carpet One could replace all of their ballasts at once, with the intention of saving time and money on maintenance.
Lighting Retrofits
Eureka Floor Carpet One's main purpose for performing the retrofits was because of the cost benefit-analysis from a small business stand point. Carpet One was looking for a more energy efficient lighting system and a means to replace their older, ballast lighting system which had been less cost-effective. The RCEA replaced Carpet One's lighting with compact fluorescent lighting, which lasted longer and used less energy than their previous lighting.
Retrofit Analysis
- Installed April 2007
- Total Installed Cost: $6,149.99
- Instant Rebate: $2,857.77
- Final Cost: $3,292.22
- Estimated Simple Payback: 1.5 Years
- Estimated Energy Savings: 14,321 Kilowatt-hours/year
- Estimated Carbon Dioxide Emission Reduction: 7,447lbs/year
Kilowatt-hour and Carbon Dioxide Emission Savings:
Because of lack of data preceding the retrofits, energy savings from April of 2007 through April 2008 could not be accurately calculated. If supplied with data collected an entire year before the retrofit, carbon dioxide and KWH savings could be determined, but because the only full years data came after the retrofits, conclusions cannot be drawn on these savings.
Effects of Retrofits
According to the graphical analysis of Carpet One energy consumption, Carpet One experienced a significant decline in energy use between April of 2007 and April of 2008. After April of 2008, Carpet One increased their energy use followed this trend until April of 2009, when energy use decreased once again.
Change in Habits
Eureka Floor Carpet One reported using their lights more often than when they first installed the compact florescent lights. We suspect this change in energy use occurred during the month of April, 2008. According to our graph of Carpet One energy consumption this increase in energy use continued for almost an entire year, finally decreasing in April of 2009.
Future Upgrades
Eureka Floor Carpet One has no more lighting available for upgrade, but has expressed interest in both solar electric and solar heating retrofits.
Customer Satisfaction
Eureka Floor Carpet One expressed satisfaction with their overall experience with the RCEA staff and contractors. One aspect of the upgrade which Carpet One would have liked to been more informed that there was more than one electrician working on the retrofits. Carpet One also believed that analysis took longer to complete than the expected amount of time.
Without the proposal from the RCEA, Carpet One expected to have completed the same lighting upgrade after a period of one and a half years or longer.