State of Michigan's Energy Efficiency

From Great Lakes Wiki

LEADING BY EXAMPLE

A look at the energy efficiency of Michigan's state buildings

By Amanda Peterka, with additional reporting by Natalie Newman

The governor is greening the state’s house. Starting at the basement and going up, she’s putting in a more efficient heating system, parking hybrids in the garage, turning off lights in unused rooms and planting solar panels atop the roof.

To help tighten Michigan’s shrinking budget, Gov. Jennifer Granholm has saved money wasted in state buildings by charging departments to be more conscious of their environmental impacts. The past few years have seen a number of programs to ramp up energy-saving.

But it’s not just a matter of keeping everything in-house. The governor’s policies extend to the public, where a lot of them can be applied in residential areas and Michiganders’ own homes. It takes a strong institution, like the state, to lead by example.

“We want to have success stories to show to the public to say, ‘Hey, look at what we’ve done, look at the savings,’” said Ric Martin, building operations specialist in the Department of Management and Budget, which oversees buildings’ energy consumption.

The state requires departments to audit energy use of their buildings. The passage of September’s Energy Efficiency Resource Standard requires utility companies in both commercial and residential buildings to offer energy efficiency programs – something that only 19 states in the country do.

This helps combat the state’s rising energy costs – something both public and private building owners face even as they require more stringent energy standards. But the good news is that energy improvements are often as easy as switching off a light every now and then.

“When we started [with energy improvements], we were financially and budget-wise in very bad shape,” said Jan Patrick, the Department of Labor and Economic Growth’s leader in energy reduction. “Our encouragement to each other is that if we can do it, anyone can do it.”

And anyone can do the things that have made the biggest dent energy-wise in Michigan’s budget deficit. By turning lights off at the end of the day in the buildings in downtown Lansing, the state reduced 16 percent of electrical use.

“Lighting makes a difference anywhere you’re at,” Martin said. “Turning off appliances and computers – that’s what saves. Nothing compares to people turning it off.”

Patrick puts together a flier for state building tenants with tips about turning off lights and appliances.

“They’re not rocket science,” Patrick said. “People have done professional and better things, but they’re small education pieces and emphasize the fact that it’s not just enough to send out one blurb or one request. You need constant reminders from trusted sources to keep the effort going.”

But Keith Paasch, director of the building operations division at management and budget, said that more can be done to let the public know about the state’s energy successes. The state has reduced energy consumption in its buildings by almost 18 percent since 2002 – much more than the 10 percent goal it set for itself.

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, which ranks states based on energy, gave Michigan a low 38th-place in its annual scorecard. But in the “state lead by example” category, Michigan did well in building efficiency.

An added benefit is that Michigan’s emissions of carbon, the greenhouse gas found to contribute to global warming, have been reduced by almost 95,000 metric tons, according to state figures.

“I don’t think the state does a good enough job in telling how we’re leading the country in energy efficiency,” Paasch said.

Jerry Elmblat, energy use reduction coordinator of the Michigan Department of Corrections, said it comes down to individual government workers and lawmakers spreading the word.

“I tell everybody to bring this stuff back home,” Elmblat said. “There’s a major ripple effect. There are so many employees that if they all went back and did something we would actually move the world a little bit here.”

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