With Earth Day set for April 22, many people may have saving the environment on their minds. Saving the environment and saving dollars is the idea for many local businesses who have made equipment upgrades in the past year.
LifeSource Health Foods takes numerous measures to ensure that their company’s practices are sustainable.
“We have a lot of organic inventory because we want to encourage organic agriculture,” Michelle Suess, Sustainability Director, said. “Buying local reduces transportation and thus pollution.”
Decisions like this and using an electric powered work truck is what won them the large, sustainable business of the year award at the 2010 Mid-Willamette Valley Green Awards on March 13.
Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the future was the definition of sustainability used to evaluate the companies up for this award.
The store made another environmental effort last year when they installed solar panels on the roof.
One goal was to produce enough electricity to feed back into the grid.
“There have been instances when we’ve been able to, but generally we don’t because we have a huge refrigeration system to fully run,” Seuss said.
The store’s solar system is a grid-tied system rated at 34.83 KW, which means under ideal conditions it can generate 34,830 watts of electricity per hour.
“We were able to hit 42,000kw last year, which is much better than expected based on the size of the panels we installed,” Seuss said. “We’ve been very happy with them.”
One setback occurred when the panels were recalled and thus replaced. However, Seuss claims that they have had “a good return based on expectation.”
The Dallas Aquatic System has seen similar results after installing solar panels along with making other efficiency upgrades.
According to the Energy Trust of Oregon, the city run center with five pools now saves nearly 50 percent on their gas and electricity bills. The sun takes care of the rest.
Included in the upgrades was new lighting, a new heat reclaim for the locker room, variable speed pumping and airflow, a new building automation system and a solar pool heating system.
The new system now heats the main 195,000-gallon lap pool. The water is heated as it is pumped through 80 rooftop collectors during daylight hours.
Dallas Aquatic Center will accrue an estimated savings of $86,000 in their utility bills which reflects a savings of 470,448 kilowatt hours and 45,942 therms.
