PERTZ

 

Going green in St. Louis:
Cooler home, cooler energy bills.

 

A lot of people are thinking green, but St. Louis is leading the nation in green.  And when it comes to saving a lot of green, this St. Louis invention could be doing that in your home in the not-too-distant future.

 

 

Recently the President mandated that all standard light bulbs become 30 percent more efficient by 2012. But few of us are aware of the mandates that have recently been going on in the highest energy-consuming appliance in your home, your heating and cooling system.

 

 

The average home central air conditioning system delivers 8 to 10 SEER.  (SEER is Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio; the higher the SEER, the more efficient the system.) In an effort to clean up energy usage, the federal government mandated a minimum requirement of 13 SEER in early 2006. This is a 30 percent to 60 percent gain in efficiency for most consumers and a big win for the nation’s reduced energy consumption.

 

 

At the same time the government was making this mandate, Al Reifel, Vice President of Research and Development for NORDYNE, an international HVAC manufacturer based in St. Louis, realized that just hitting the government minimums wasn’t enough.  He wanted to blow them out of the water. 

 

 

Reifel looked to the Asian and European markets where the cost of energy and the tighter living quarters placed more stringent demand on cooling efficiency. Using Japanese technology, he created a 23-SEER air conditioner – 77 percent more efficient than the government minimum and the most efficient air conditioner in North America. The product is so technologically advanced, it received the industry’s highest award for innovation in early 2008.

 

 

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Energy savings.
To give you an idea of just how much energy the average consumer would save, think in terms of greenhouse gases. In St. Louis, going from a 10-SEER unit to a 23-SEER air conditioner can save roughly 3,000 kilowatt-hours per year.  Those kilowatt-hours are the environmental equivalent of 2.3 metric tons of harmful carbon dioxide emissions. Other ways to get the same impact are to:
•     Consume 257 fewer gallons of gas.
•     Turn off all the electricity permanently in a third of your home.
•     Stop driving your car for 5 months out of the year.

 

 

If every home in St. Louis would replace their current HVAC with this new technology, the environmental benefit would be the equivalent of taking 443,000 cars off the road annually.

 

 

Cost savings.
So what does this really mean to the average consumer? Fortunately, right now the cost of energy in St. Louis is about 25 percent lower than the national average. In fact, we haven’t had a major rate increase in two decades.  But if you remember in 2007 when energy was deregulated in the state of Illinois, our neighbors across the river where hit with massive increases.  In some cases these increases more than doubled their bills.

 

 

Will an Ameren customer in Missouri or Illinois, expect more frequent requests to increase rates. In both states, Ameren says its costs are rising beyond what they're entitled to collect from customers through current rates. As a result, the company says its utilities are earning less than they're allowed. For example, when Ameren announced its rate filing in Illinois a couple of months ago, it said the cost of pole transformers had risen 75 percent since 2004, wood poles, 45 percent; aluminum wire 40 percent; copper wire 100 percent; and natural gas pipe, 55 percent.”

 

 

The net impact is this: The average St. Louisan spends about $450 per year on cooling their home. But with conversion to this new technology, they can be putting approximately $250 back in their pocket every year. And if our local energy rates rise just 2.5 cents to meet that national average, that $250 grows to $340.

 

 

With the average unit life of an air conditioner being 15 years, the long-term savings is impressive. And in the short-term, homeowners will can use that saved money to offset rising gasoline and grocery prices. 

 

 

What’s next.
With Reifel’s help, NORDYNE is currently working on products that will also offer the consumer similar energy savings on heating bills. Just in time, too, because the Department of Energy expects propane and natural gas costs to rise this year – 29.4 percent and 9 percent,

 

 

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respectively. NORDYNE has also recently launched an initiative called ecoLogic, to help homeowners find the most efficient heating and cooling products. Visit ecoLogicComfort.com to see what’s available.

 

 

Going green takes more than changing a light bulb or driving an electric car. For true energy efficiency, look at every aspect of your home and where the biggest energy drainers are. For those who are looking to a replace their worn-out air conditioner, looking at the most efficient available make a lot of sense, as in dollars and cents.