Energy Conservation On The Road
Transportation accounts for more than 60% of the energy consumed in Hawai‘i. While air transportation uses the largest portion (nearly 40%), trucks, buses, and cars consume roughly 20%. According to the Hawai‘i Department of Transportation, the number of registered vehicles on O‘ahu alone has almost doubled in the past 20 years. So taking steps to use fuel more efficiently on the road is a great way to help shrink Hawaii’s carbon footprint, and stay green.
- Walk or bike when you aren’t in a hurry or have shorter distances to travel.
- Carpool, vanpool, or take the bus whenever you can.
- Keep your car or truck tuned up to maximize fuel efficiency and reduce emissions.
- Make sure your tires are properly inflated, which can reduce your emissions by as much as 3%.
- Trade your gas guzzler for a fuel-efficient car, a hybrid, a flexible fuel vehicle, or a clean diesel vehicle (which would allow you to use bio-diesel).
- Buy a motorcycle or moped.
- Driving calmly and sensibly can improve your gas mileage by 33% at highway speeds and by 5% around town.
- Shed some weight. Leave your toys out of the car, because an extra 100 pounds in your vehicle could reduce your mileage by up to 2%.
- Avoid idling. Idling gets zero miles per gallon. The bigger your engine, the more gas you waste when idling.
- Go A/C free. Using air-conditioning dramatically reduces your mileage, especially in stop-and-go city traffic.
Energy Conservation at Work
Nearly 40% of the energy consumed in Hawaii is used to power buildings, so conserving energy at work is a great way to reduce our energy needs. Each year in the United States buildings use $200 billion worth of electricity and natural gas. If the energy efficiency of U.S. buildings improved by 10%, Americans would save about $20 billion and reduce greenhouse gases equal to the emissions from about 30 million vehicles. Here are some ways you can reduce the environmental impact where you work.
- Cut back on air-conditioning, by taking advantage of the cross-breezes of the trade winds to cool your building.
- Close windows and doors when the air-conditioner is on.
- Install weather stripping to fix leaks that allow cool air to escape.
- Have the air-conditioning system checked regularly to be sure it is running at optimal efficiency.
- Set the thermostat to the warmest comfortable setting.
- Use natural or energy-efficient lighting and eliminate unnecessary lighting.
- Install energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), which typically use 75% less energy, and last 10 times longer than traditional incandescent bulbs.
- Turn off lights in unoccupied offices, conference rooms, break rooms, and bathrooms.
- Using timers or occupancy sensors in restrooms and conference rooms also reduces the time lights are on in little-used places. The Navy has installed sensors at Pearl Harbor which are expected to save $90,000 annually.
- Use the power management and automatic sleep features of computers. Screen savers do not reduce a monitor’s energy use.
- Battery chargers for mobile phones, PDAs, and other digital devices draw electricity when they’re not in use. Eliminate phantom loads by unplugging them when your digital devices aren’t charging.
- Turn off and unplug coffee makers, microwaves, and toaster ovens when not in use. Use a smart power strip to cut power when it’s not needed.
- Look for the Energy Star logo when replacing desktop computers, laptops, printers, fax machines, copiers, scanners, lighting, air-conditioners, and telephones.
- Also, commit to buying recycled paper products, which require 70% to 90% less energy to make.
Kauai Solar Energy
It takes about four hundred million years to produce fossil fuels, but it only takes eight minutes for sunlight to reach Kauai from the sun.
Solar hot water heating is the most cost effective means of tapping into the sun. This is the first solar technology that homeowners should employ, since it can cut your electricity bill by up to 40%. Solar water heating systems consist of a solar collector, a circulation system (pump), and an insulated water tank. The water is simply circulated through the collector where it is heated up by the sun, then stored for use. The solar water heater system uses 90% less electricity than a conventional electrical water heater. On average, an electrical water heater uses 240 kWh per month while the solar water heater uses only 24 kWh. The cost of an average system is around $6500. But, after the Hawai‘i Energy rebate of $1000, a State Tax Credit (35%) of $1925, and a Federal Tax Credit (25%) of $1650 your solar water heater system will cost around $2000, with a payback period of 2 – 4 years.
The number of Hawai‘i residents with photovoltaic (PV) on their rooftops is growing rapidly. PV converts the sun’s energy into useable electricity through panels using silicon wafers as the semiconducting material, which produce direct current that is fed into an inverter that converts the energy into household AC electricity. Most systems in Hawai‘i are grid-tied PV systems which do not have any storage capacity, instead using the electricity grid as “storage” through net energy metering. Some systems do have backup or storage capacity that provide a few days of juice if there is a blackout or the sun isn’t shining. Systems range from smaller 1 kW systems to large 6 kW systems – enough to cover an entire home’s energy needs. Depending on the system size, PV systems can cost between $5000 and $40,000 after tax credits and rebates, with a payback period of 5 – 15 years.
Kauai Efficient Appliances
Appliances account for about 35% of your total electricity bill on Kauai, but you can reduce the amount of power they use by upgrading to new, energy efficient Energy Star models. Some of the new appliances work better, look better, and have more features yet consume half of the electricity of an older model. Switching from a 1990 refrigerator to a 2010 Energy Star model could save you about $200 per year. Or maybe you no longer need that old second refrigerator? The old beast probably costs you a fortune, particularly if you have it out in the hot carport or garage. In fact, upgrading your primary refrigerator to a larger, Energy Star refrigerator will be a savings over two smaller inefficient refrigerators.
When buying a new appliance, consider the energy efficiency of the item along with the sale price. This is like looking at the miles per gallon when buying a new car. The decision you make today will affect your electricity bill for years to come. The cost of energy efficient appliances is typically higher than standard models, but the money saved over time will more than cover the initial cost. To sweeten the deal, local energy companies often provide cash rebates for qualifying energy efficient appliances, including ceiling fans, clothes washers, dish washers, refrigerators, and room air conditioners.
Energy Star appliances are about 25% more efficient than average appliances. Read the Energy Guide labels to compare estimated annual operating costs between comparable models in order to select the most efficient appliance for your money. The Energy Guide labels are required on water heaters, refrigerators, freezers, clothes washers, dishwashers, and room air conditioners, and is only awarded to appliances that significantly exceed the minimum national standards.
Kauai Efficient Lighting
If every American home replaced just one light with an Energy Star light, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year. A compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL) will save about $30 over its lifetime because it uses 75 percent less energy and lasts about 10 times longer than an incandescent bulb. One bulb in every home will save about $700 million in annual energy costs, and prevent 9 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions per year, equivalent to the emissions of about 800,000 cars. Lighting a home on Kauai only consumes about 8% of your electricity bill, but it is the easiest place to start making reductions. Daylighting, compact fluorescents, and light emitting diodes (LEDs) are bright ideas to consider.
Daylighting is the practice of placing windows, skylights, daylights, or openings so that during the day natural light provides effective internal lighting. New technologies, such as the Solatube daylight allow you to bring light into rooms that are not directly below the roof. These improvements also currently qualify for a 30% federal tax credit as well. Also, consider several small skylights instead of one large skylight for better distribution. Nature provides the best light available – and it’s free.
CFLs are miniature versions of full-sized fluorescents, and screw into standard lamp sockets giving off light that looks just like incandescent bulbs. They use 75% less electricity than out-dated incandescent light bulbs and last about ten times longer (over 8000 hours versus under 1000 hours). They also produce about 75 percent less heat, which reduces cooling costs and helps you stay cool.
LEDs are small, solid light bulbs with diffuser lenses which are extremely energy-efficient. Currently, the high cost of producing LEDs is a roadblock to widespread use, but researchers are finding new technologies to drive the price of LEDs into a more competitive range with CFLs. The benefits over CFLs and incandescents are: they use only 2-10 watts of electricity, they last up to 10 times longer than compact fluorescents, they hold up well to jarring and bumping, they produce less heat, and they are mercury free.
Kauai Energy Efficiency At Home
If all the households in Hawaii cut their energy bill in half, we would save one million dollars per day in energy costs. Therefore, energy efficiency in the home is the cheapest, safest, and fastest option we have available. If you want to get started cutting your home energy bill in half, you may want to do an energy audit to see where you can make the greatest difference in your energy consumption. You can do an energy audit yourself, or you can hire a professional to tell you where savings can be found.
A typical Hawai’i home uses:
40% – Water Heater
15% – Refrigerator
12% – Air Conditioner
8% – Lighting
8% – Cooking
8% – Clothes Dryer
5% – Misc
3% – Dishwasher
1% – Clothes Washer
You can find resources online for completing your own home energy audit, including the Department of Energy. New tools make it easy to measure how much energy your various appliances and devices are using, and different electricity monitors are available at home improvement stores. Many of these monitors allow you to plug in an electrical appliance, and it will measure how much energy the device is using and will tell you how much it costs to operate it. More sophisticated models can track exactly how much electricity your home is consuming at any given moment, allowing you to switch on or off various appliances and electric devices to see how much they are consuming individually. Some of these will interface with your home computer and allow you to record changes so you can track your usage over time. These are incredibly useful tools for helping you identify where you can make the biggest energy improvements and save money.
