WESTFIELD – The City Council voted unanimously Thursday night to approve two Memoranda of Understanding between the city and the Westfield Gas & Electric Department that puts more than $58,000 back into the city coffers.
Sean Fitzgerald of the WG&E said this morning that the money coming back to the city is a rebate for money invested to reduce the city’s energy footprint.
“We have a program for commercial and industrial customers that provides rebates an incentive for installing energy-efficient equipment, anything that will reduce energy consumption,” Fitzgerald said. “The city is just another business account to us and the City Hall project will save a lot of energy, and money, in the long run.”
The rebate of $50,000 issued by the WG&E to the city is for renovations, including energy efficient systems, at City Hall, while a second rebate of $8,012 is for replacing the lights of Park Square with new low energy technology.
Fitzgerald said the utility initiated the GO (Green Opportunities) program nearly three years ago and has paid about $1.1 million in rebates to its commercial and industrial customer. The municipal utility initiates the GO program by conducting a “scoping audit” of businesses interested in applying for the rebate funding.
“That audit is an assessment of the customer’s energy consumption, all of their equipment, the building envelope,” Fitzgerald said. “Then we give them a report with a list of ways to cut their energy consumption.”
The report lists a number of options available to the business to achieve greater energy efficiency. The WG&E offers rebates up to $50,000 as incentives to reduce the energy footprint, which not only benefits the commercial and industrial customers, but also benefits all electrical customers in the city by reducing peak power demands, which are substantially higher in price that the normal loads under contract.
“It’s a big deal. This is a big, local economic impact program,” Fitzgerald said. “The whole concept of the GO program is to partner with businesses here in Westfield to make them more competitive, to cut their energy costs and keep them here in Westfield.”
“We also have a rebate program for our residential customers,” Fitzgerald said.
Residents can apply for rebates when they replace furnaces, hot water hears, kitchen appliances with energy efficient systems.
Fitzgerald can be contacted for greater detail about both the business and residential rebate program at 572-0101.
