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RCEA Retrofit Analysis                                      

     This page contains an analysis of the Redwood Coast Energy Authority's (RCEA) lighting retrofit of the Vellutini Baking Company. The purpose of the analysis is to determine the effectiveness of the retrofit by calculating the energy saved, carbon dioxide reduction, money saved, and payback time of the retrofit. ^[1] To learn more about the project visit: RCEA energy audit reviews.

The RCEA

     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".^[2] The RCEA uses grants from the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and the US Department of Energy (DOE) to operate.

The Vellutini Baking Company

     With their mission statement in mind, the RCEA worked with the Vellutini Baking Company to increase bakery's energy efficiency. To achieve this the RCEA helped to replace the bakery's incandescent bulbs with more efficient florescent bulbs in July of 2008.

Interview with the Owner

Business: Small business, bakery

• Location: Eureka, California
• Address: 502 Henderson Street
• The total installed cost was $1108.38
• The cost came to $808.81 after an instant rebate was applied

     The owner of the bakery decided to go ahead with the retrofit because of the fluorescent bulbs, "are a better product and are more better environmentally". ^[3] Mr. Vellutini informed us that the the retrofit included replacing incandescent bulbs with 15 fluorescent bulbs. There were 14, four foot bulbs installed inside the bakery and one large compact fluorescent installed outside.^[4] He said that he wouldn't have gotten the upgrade without the RCEA and that he would do more retrofits, "if something broke and the replacements were more efficient". Mr. Vellutini stated that the bakery's energy usage habits did not change at all after the retrofit and that he was pleased with RCEA's work.

Estimations vs Actual Calculation(L4)

Table 1: The RCEA's estimations vs actual calculations using data from PG&E (A2, A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, A9, C4,this is a table not a figure, C3, C4)

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

Figure 1: Actual power vs time

(time of year would make more sense than month number)

Data Used:
-The RCEA used an average cost of $0.12992 per kWh (kilowatt per hour) and the tax rate is 0.03.

-The average power use (kWh/month) from before and after the retrofit was used(why isn't this in the table above?)

     before: 6978.182

     after: 6949.333 (A4)

Data used: File:VellutiniCompanyData.xls

Conclusions

     The calculations proved to be very (W9) interesting. Even though the retrofit cost $808.81 the results were minimal (W9, present  numbers not opinions, discuss before tables). The averages of kWh before and after the retrofit were too close to assume that it seriously (W9) impacted the energy consumption or the CO₂ emissions(says who?). In fact, it (W3) is true that even a slight difference in the business's electricity usage could have produced the results that were found. This (W2) must mean that either the business increased its usage of the lighting enough to cancel out the effects of the retrofit or that the retrofit just wasn't large enough to make an impact(well what was the retrofit. and it did save nearly $50 per year). 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.(W9)

References