Manchester's bright idea encourages efficiency
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By ANDREW McKEEVER Herald Staff - Published: September 17, 2005
MANCHESTER — The largest community program to encourage energy efficiency in Vermont history is in the planning stages.
Set to be launched Oct. 29, the "Manchester Challenge" aims to get local consumers to install a total of 40,000 energy-saving light bulbs in area homes and businesses over a six-month period. That could save a total of more than $2 million over the life span of the light bulbs, said Town Manager Peter Webster.
That's a significant sum at any time, but even more important now when oil prices are near historic highs and energy conservation is back in vogue, he said.
"I think it's a great thing for the town and good for Manchester statewide," he said. "It will raise awareness of the need to conserve."
The idea is actually the brainchild of a local student now attending Middlebury College.
After a college program replaced 7,400 incandescent light bulbs around Middlebury, Thomas Hand, 22, an economics and environmental studies major at the college, started encouraging his father to replace older light bulbs with energy-saving fluorescent ones, he said.
During Christmas vacation, Hand went down to a local hardware store and bought 60 of the energy efficient lights and installed them in his parent's home in Dorset.
Over a six-month period, the family's electric bill was reduced by 28 percent, or $246, his father Jim Hand said.
"So we decided we should do something like that in Manchester," Jim Hand said.
At the time, the light bulbs cost only 9 cents each due to a $3 per light bulb subsidy from Efficiency Vermont, an energy conservation program launched by the Legislature in 1999, said Bob Murphy, business development specialist with Efficiency Vermont, a state energy conservation program.
The subsidy is not as generous now, but still knocks $2 off the price of each light bulb, he said.
The Vermont Energy Investment Corp., a private nonprofit, runs the program, which covers much more than just light bulbs, and counsels commercial businesses on ways to save energy along with residential consumers, he said.
Efficiency Vermont is funded through a surcharge on individual and commercial electric bills, and recycles that revenue back to consumers through subsidies that reduce the price of energy-saving products that use electricity, such as light bulbs, he said.
The 40,000 light bulbs that project backers in Manchester hope to see installed would normally cost about $3 including sales tax, but the $2 subsidy reduces that price to less than one dollar per light bulb, including the sales tax, Murphy said.
Originally Webster, Hand and Rep. Patti Komline, R-Dorset, hoped to persuade Murphy to support a program that aimed to install 40 lights in each home, but that was too much of a financial reach for Efficiency Vermont. The organization couldn't afford to allocate that much of its subsidy budget in one place, and this is a way to get the most bang for the buck, Murphy said.
"Most of the savings come from a few lights in the home that use the most electricity," he said.
The goal now is to encourage consumers in Manchester and surrounding towns to buy up to 20 light bulbs per household in a drive set to begin Oct. 29, which coincides with the start of daylight savings time, Thomas Hand said.
Booths will be set up at four locations around town for two weekends to push the program, he said.
People can buy the lights any time, but right now they can only buy six at a time. The lights that will be part of the "Manchester Challenge" will also be a higher quality bulb that will last longer, Hand said.
If successful, it will be the largest campaign ever undertaken by Efficiency Vermont to push energy-saving lights in a particular community, Webster said.
Poultney sponsored a similar effort in 2003, along with Middlebury last year, but those involved smaller numbers of light bulbs, he said.
The program will run until April 2006 and will not cost local taxpayers a penny, since the Rotary Club, area businesses and the state are contributing $8,000 toward the cost of the booths and the advertising, Webster said.
"Our goal is to install 20 bulbs in 2,000 homes," Webster said. "That could save consumers $2 million over the lifespan of the bulbs."
Contact Andrew McKeever at andrew.mckeever@rutlandherald.com.
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