Mobile County Goes Green

Posted on: Sep 22nd, 2010 | News and Announcements

Mobile County is going green with a $1.9 million grant to retrofit buildings for energy savings. Payback will start immediately with savings of $300,000 a year. ?We had an opportunity to save tax dollars in a big way because we opted for projects that had low capital costs and high savings potential,? said Mobile County Commission President Merceria Ludgood. The biggest part of the investment, with one of the quickest paybacks, is a $600,000 investment in lighting and lighting controls for 10 buildings owned and maintained by the county, including the 581,000 square feet of space at Government Plaza. The county will be changing out lights and fixtures to improve efficiency. Some of the other projects will serve a dual purpose: upgrading to higher efficiency products while also addressing needed capital expenditures. Those dual savings projects include the replacement of the rooftop heating and air-conditioning units at Metro Jail and Strickland Youth Center. In addition, the projects include a new roof for the jail. The new roof will be light-reflective. ?These are big ticket items that would have cost us more than $350,000,? said Commissioner Connie Hudson. ?We needed to replace the HVAC systems and our engineers now are able to upgrade them at the same time.? The License Commissioner?s Office on Michael Avenue will get a facelift and a big energy-savings boost with the installation of air lock doors on the façade of its building. As an office that gets a high volume of foot traffic all day, the office air quickly becomes uncomfortable for taxpayers and employees alike with the door opening constantly to the outdoors. The air-lock system is a fairly common solution for limiting the transfer of cooled or heated air by creating an air pocket between two sets of doors. The final project is a stove hood for the kitchen at the jail. It provides a variable speed fan controlled according to need. It will replace the fixed speed fan currently in place. ?This grant is particularly helpful in tough economic times, when we have less capital for improvements,? said Commissioner Mike Dean. ?Our engineering staff grabbed an opportunity that will pay dividends long into the future.? Construction is expected to begin in about four weeks and the projects are slated for completion in the next fiscal year. ###