When the Gas Company Calls...

We were very surprised to hear from the local Gas company. Our local gas company WE in the Paper Valley in Wisconsin called to find out if a problem existed. They were concerned because our gas usage plummeted. They figured something was wrong. However everything was right.

We reduced our warm weather usage of gas through a new equipment purchase and by using common sense to better manage our usage.

Here's how we did it.

Utility Savings Project

Project: Decrease monthly gas costs during warm weather months

Proposed: Eliminate high natural gas heating bills during summer months

Scope: Adjust environmental control to maintain proper humidity and temperature levels without using supplemental heat, and reduce costs.

Process: We identified the natural gas usage problem as improper calibration of two separate systems to control temperature and humidity in the manufacturing area. Both systems were controlled with a sophisticated real-time computer-processing program that would turn heating and cooling on at the same time. Adjustments were made to the control system by increasing the set temperature to turn on cooling at 76 degrees and adding a two-degree dead band, and turn on heating at 67 degrees with a two-degree dead band, so we were able to control the environment in the building at proper temperature limits. In conjunction with temperature, the humidity control is programmed to turn on dehumidification at 60% relative humidity and turn on humidity at less than 45% relative humidity.

Results: Natural Gas savings of 250 therms of natural gas usage that is not required to provide heat to the manufacturing area. 250 therms of natural gas is equivalent to 2925 pounds of carbon dioxide gas (1 therm = 11.7 pounds of carbon dioxide) (Doe, 2007) in one month. If we conservatively figure five months of savings, we eliminated about 15,000 pounds of carbon dioxide gas from the atmosphere by readjusting the environment control in the manufacturing area eliminating the natural gas consumption.

There will be an added benefit in the reduction of total electricity, due to the environmental changes that will result in saving KWH per month. At this time, there is not substantial data to provide an accurate savings due to reduced KWH, but keep in mind besides the dollar savings, the power company produces electricity with natural gas, so the total greenhouse gas savings will be more than this report identifies.