Article Display

How Shaw conserves energy, how you can help

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman John Gordinier
  • 20th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
SHAW AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. --  October is energy conservation month and there are projects going on throughout Shaw to cut down energy use, such as; upgrading heating systems, using more solar panels for outdoor lighting and decentralizing heating boilers for the dormitories.

Within the last year, Shaw has installed the same solar-powered lighting as used at the Chapel Pond trail as the 1.5-mile running track at the outdoor recreation center, said Greg Skaggs, 20th Civil Engineer Squadron base energy conservation manager. Basically, the sun's energy is absorbed by the solar panels and sent to a battery for storage. Once night time arrives, the lights automatically turn on and operate on the sun's energy that was captured throughout the day.

"Our recent project is decentralizing the heating for the dormitories," he said. "Right now the dormitory heating is coming from a central heat plant, but we are decentralizing it and installing new boilers for each dormitory building. This will make the heating system more efficient and lower our energy use."

Since 2003, Shaw has cut energy use by 23.9 percent, Mr. Skaggs said. The contributing factors for this significant decrease are Shaw's heating and cooling policy, increased awareness of energy conservation and milder weather.

"Shaw's policy on the operation of facility heating and cooling was developed in October, 2005, and since then energy use has decreased," he said. "The policy states occupied working environments are heated to 68 degrees in the winter and are cooled to 76 degrees in the summer. In unoccupied spaces, it is 60 degrees for the winter and 84 degrees in the summer.

Awareness is always a huge key to energy conservation, he said. There are many things people can do to save energy, which in turn may lower the electric bill.

"Shaw's heating and cooling policy can be utilized at home as well," Mr. Skaggs said. "If you are leaving to go on vacation for a few days, increase the thermostat in the summer to lower air conditioning usage and decrease the thermostat in the winter to lower heating usage.

"Another way to conserve energy is replacing regular light bulbs with compact fluorescent lights," he said. "They last longer and emit more light while using less energy. These lights are a little more expensive, but replacing your four most used lights in the house with compact fluorescent bulbs will lower energy use. Also, if the light is on in the bedroom and you're not doing anything in there, turn it off; save energy.

"Another recommendation is don't leave doors and windows open; depending on the weather, you will lose cool air or warm air," Mr. Skaggs said. "In the summer, close drapes and blinds to block the sun's heat, which allows cool air to last longer. In the winter, open the drapes and blinds to allow the sun's heat to warm up the air."

"Conserving energy will not only preserve funds, but will improve the environment while reducing our nation's dependence on unstable foreign energy sources," said Col. James Hyatt, 20th Fighter Wing commander. "It will also help us meet our energy conservation goal to reduce overall energy consumption 35 percent by the year 2010. We all play a vital role in reducing energy consumption. Let's make the effort together to manage our resources more efficiently."