New Castle County is committed to creating a carbon neutral community by fostering economic development, creating green job opportunities for all citizens, and enhancing environmental protections.
To meet these goals, the county is leveraging $3.8 million of federal stimulus funds with $4 million from county-issued bonds to implement this energy efficiency and renewable energy project to upgrade county-owned facilities. In 2009, the energy service firm, Ameresco performed audits on county-owned facilities to assess the current energy performance and identify opportunities to renew facility infrastructure and reduce energy demand and costs. From the audits, Ameresco identified numerous opportunities for increasing energy efficiency, which will impact 20 facilities and 461,643 square feet of building space. These projects are projected to save more than $450,000 on utility costs annually.
New Castle County contracted with Ameresco to implement these projects. Ameresco made extensive outreach to promote this opportunity and share requests for proposals (RFPs) with vendors and contractors in the region, with attention to local and small businesses, including minority- and women-owned businesses.
The projects include lighting upgrades and improvements, improved energy managements systems, efficient heat pumps and coolers, water saving measures and more. The two projects that have generated the most interest are the solar arrays installed on Government Center (77 kW) and Hockessin Library (49 kW), which help to power the buildings. Our web kiosk allows you to view the energy that the solar panels produce in real time. You may notice some of these projects next time you visit the county libraries, Rockwood Museum, Carousel Park or county government offices.
View our solar arrays at http://www.solrenview.com/lib/frmsrv.html?cgi=/cgi-bin/CGIhandler.cgi?&site_ID=713&color=green
Energy efficiency and conservation measures include:
Lighting controls and system improvements
Integrated and new energy management systems
Water conservation
Premium efficiency motors
Vending machine controls
Variable frequency drives for air handlers
Solar photovoltaic systems
Electric to gas conversions
Heat pump replacements and system improvements
Boiler replacements
Roof replacements
Cooling tower replacements
Ventilation and HVAC improvements
Upgraded buildings include:
Libraries: Bear, Brandywine Hundred, Elsmere, Hockessin, Newark, Woodlawn
Government Center
James Gilliam Building
Connor Building
Central Receiving Warehouse
Maintenance Base D
Environmental Lab Building
Police Academy
Rockwood Conference Center and Museum
Glasgow EMS Station
Carousel Park Main Office, Maintenance Shop, Indoor Arena and Mounted Police