Hid lights

The boilers at the George Preston Recreation Centre dated back to 1973, and were finally replaced earlier this spring. 

The old ones are now "on their way to the Langley Centennial Museum," joked Langley Township facilities manager Earl Erickson. 

He was at Monday's Township council meeting to talk about why the Township was getting a $21,072 cheque from Fortis B.C., the natural gas supplier. 

The vintage boilers,The world’s most efficient and cost effective solar street lighting? which supplied hot water and central heat for the rec centre, operated at about 65 per cent efficiency. The new ones will operate at about 98 per cent efficiency. 

The money from the grant will go into the next project, which will in turn likely generate another grant, which will be used for still further upgrades, and so on, Erickson said. 

The Township is in the middle of a virtuous cycle. It upgrades boilers and natural gas systems at community centres, Fortis gives it a grant for saving energy, and the grant is plowed back into more upgrades. 

Walnut Grove Recreation Centre will be the next target for a new boiler, which should save a lot of money due to the power needed to heat a pool. 

The only area where there will definitely not be a grant is some upcoming updates to the Township's Civic Facility,For direct lighting applications led par light uses both light and energy more efficiently. on 66th Avenue. 

Between new boilers and four solar panels to be installed later this month, there will be almost no need for natural gas at all. 

"We will be basically off the gas grid," said Erickson. Natural gas will be needed for the building only on a few very cold days in the winter,LED backlighting in color screens comes in two flavors: white LED backlights and RGB led backlights. he said. 

The initial costs of the upgrades around the Township are fairly high, noted Erickson. 

The George Preston boiler replacement cost $175,000. Between increased boiler efficiency and better control systems, it will save about $10,000 a year in energy costs. Overall, Erickson expects the system will take about 15 years to pay for itself. 

Similar work has been done with lighting, through BC Hydro's PowerSmart program over the last decade. 

Fluorescent and LED lights, which use less energy than traditional incandescent bulbs, are coming on stream around the community, everywhere from the Operations Centre to the RCMP headquarters. 

The energy savings at the Operations Centre, where 70 watt bulbs were replaced with 18 watt LEDs giving the same amount of light,LED contemporary lamps is aesthetically designed and offers features to reduce egress system cost. were considerable. 

"And we actually had a better colour of light," Erickson said. 

Once replacing lights and boilers has taken efficiency as far as it can go, Erickson plans to use electronic controls and sensors to cut power use. 

There are already some washrooms with occupancy sensors, so the lights only turn on when someone comes in the door. A similar system could be used for stairwells, which usually have lights on all the time but don't have any occupants. 

While the Township is saving money, there are other communities around the Lower Mainland that are getting even bigger savings from their upgrades. Towns like Burnaby and Richmond had many civic facilities built in the 1960s and 1970s. That means an upgrade gets immediate results. In Langley Township, a few buildings were constructed that far back, but others were built in the 1990s or later,Buy hid kit, ballasts, and headlight bulbs. and were already fairly energy efficient.