Reducing Energy Costs in Prisons, Detention Centers, & Correctional Facilities

Anthony Azusenis – Contributing Writer

Posted on Monday 17th June 2019

With energy costs rising this year for commercial business, it is essential to find ways of reducing your business’s energy consumption.  Of the commercial sector, we can see costs per kWh rising between March 2019 and last year’s numbers in the same month. If we look further into this sector, we find Public Safety and Public order Facilities.  Running for upwards of 24 hours a day, it’s no question that Public Safety and Public order Facilities are constantly requiring the utmost consistency in equipment used for their energy consumption. However, this comes at a cost.

According to the table created by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Public Safety and Public order Facilities used an estimated 21 Billion kWh in 2012, with lighting alone accounting for an average consumption of over 25% of these kWh.  Assuming this number has remained the same, this would mean that the change in average energy costs between 2018 and 2019 for this industry would have risen by over $1 billion USD, a rise faced by businesses in this field and tax-payers alike. However, the first step of overcoming this rise in cost can be supplemented with the implementation of energy saving LED.

Table 1

 

 

Correctional Facility LED Lighting

 

Implementing energy saving technology can greatly reduce the consumption of energy for our Prisons, Detention Centers, and Correctional Facilities.  The average LED lighting tube will use as little as 40% of the energy required to power the equivalent fluorescent tube. What this means is that with LED light you can SAVE 50% to 80% on lighting costs every single year. Lighting typically accounts for 22% to 30% of commercial energy consumption, 37% for retail, and it can run over 50% for certain facilities like Hospitals, Prisons, Detention Centers, and Public Safety Facilities which are required to run upwards of 24 hours per day.  Implementing LED’s in all of our nation’s prisons can reduce the overall cost of energy for these institutions by over $30 billion, which in turn would offset rising energy prices by over 3000%.

 

With a reduction in energy consumption of up to 60%, any increased costs per kWh can be offset by the implementation of LED lighting solutions.

 

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