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Pierce touts aging equipment upgrades

As the assembly works to put together a lean budget for the Kenai Peninsula Borough, Mayor Charlie Pierce reported at last week’s meeting that his plan to bring energy efficiency to aging borough properties is seeing good results.

“Good news, some favorable news, some of the things we've been looking at in the way of some of our facilities. We got some schools that are 50 years old, and we've got some mechanical systems that are 50 years old as well in those schools. And in this building here, there was a mechanical system that was very old and it was the boiler system. Changing out the boiler and going to a high tech boiler, the annual savings is about $20,000 in gas costs, a 45% reduction in actual consumption of natural gas.”

Pierce says similar work is being considered at several older schools.

“In this next budget, we've looked at some of those older schools and we're looking at the boilers in those older schools as well. And we believe that there would be some significant cost savings. We're looking at doing some numbers right now and we're looking at the mechanical systems, the boilers that could fail. So I think it's prudent, and the maintenance department as well thinks it's prudent, to go and try to put some money towards replacement of those boilers in the near future.”

In particular, Homer High School, Pierce said was getting upgraded first.

“The design work is done for the Homer high school, the three boilers. Homer High School will be replaced here this summer.)

Pierce said that an additional three percent in savings will be realized through electrical upgrades beyond the fuel for the boilers.

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