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The Redwood Coast Energy Authority

The Redwood Coast Energy Authority is an organization based out of Eureka, California with a mission statement as reads: "The Redwood Coast Energy Authority’s (RCEA) purpose is to develop and implement sustainable energy initiatives that reduce energy demand, increase energy efficiency, and advance the use of clean, efficient and renewable resources available in the region."

The Vellutini Baking Company

With it's mission statement in mind, the RCEA worked with the Vellutini Baking CompanyVellutini Baking Company to possibly reduce it's energy consumption by increasing it's efficiency. To achieve this the RCEA replaced the bakery's incandescent bulbs with more efficient florescent bulbs in July of 2008. RCEA offers this service for free.

As a team, my partner and I analyzed data from the bakery to see if the RCEA's retrofit met the estimated savings in kWh and in dollars. We also used the energy data to find out how much CO2 emissions the retrofit offset. To learn more about the project visit: RCEA energy audit reviews.

Taylor Edwards, Owner Vince Vellutini, and Julia Allshouse outside the bakery


Interview with the Owner

-Business: Small business, bakery

-Location: Eureka, California

-Address: 502 Henderson Street

-The retrofit costed $808.81 in all


We sat down with the owner of Vellutini Baking Company, Vince Vellutini and asked a few questions:

Q: What was retrofitted?

A: The lights in the bakery where changed to fluorescent bulbs.


Q: Did you change your habits after the retrofit?

A: No, not at all.


Q: Why did you decide on changing the bulbs?

A: Fluorescent bulbs are a better product and better environmentally.


Q: Would you have gotten the upgrade without RCEA?

A: No, although I already have solar panels.


Q: Would you do more retrofits?

A: Only if something were to break I would replace it with a more energy efficient product.


Q: Were you satisfied with the work RCEA did?

A: Definitely, was pleased with how knowledgeable the RCEA was.

Estimations vs Actual Calculation

Average   RCEA Estimation Actual Calculations
 Money saved (yr)
       $528.12     $46.32
 Money saved (month)         $44.01     $3.86
 Power saved (kwh/yr)          4,065     346.14
 CO2 Emmissions Reduction (lbs/yr)          2,113     181.42

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Data Used:
-The RCEA used an average cost of $0.12992 per kWh and the tax rate is .03.

-The average power use (kWh/month) from before and after the retrofit was used

     before: 6978.182

     after: 6949.333

This is the data used, formulated from PG&E: File:VellutiniCompanyData.xls

Conclusions

The calculations proved to be very interesting. Even though the retrofit costed $808.81 the results are barely, if at all noticeable. The averages of kWh before and after the retrofit were too close to assume that it seriously impacted the energy consumption or the CO2 emissions. In fact, it is true that even a slight difference in the business's electricity usage could have produced the results that were found. This must mean that either, the business consumed more electricity after the retrofit or that it just wasn't large enough to make an impact. Being that the owner stated that the business's habits stayed the same, one can come to the conclusion that the retrofit wasn't sufficient.

References

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