State’s Air Monitoring Brilliantly Lit and Energy Efficient

A goal of the NH State Energy Management Office (SEM) is to help state agencies and their employees identify strategies to conserve and use energy more efficiently, saving environmental resources and taxpayer dollars. Once identified, the SEM office may help fund improvements to address the issues. Funded projects have ranged from switching out outdated lighting systems to more efficient LED technology to installing solar panels on state building roofs. We recently caught up with Kendall Perkins, Jr., Air Monitoring Program Manager and Jim Poisson, Energy, Utility & Quality Assurance Project Leader for the Air Monitoring Program at the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services (NHDES) to talk about their energy efficiency efforts. Their program has benefitted from SEM funding through several projects over recent years.

“The Energy Management Office is our go to program as far as funding is concerned,” said Jim Poisson. “When we apply for funding from the Energy Management Office, or sometimes the legislature, we go for projects with the most long-term payout,” said Poisson. “At first, we replaced the security lights at all of the stations to energy saving bulbs. Then we replace the remaining bulbs with more efficient ones at facilities as they wear out.”

“We currently have twelve air monitoring stations across the state that need precise climate control because of the sensitive measuring instruments that are used,” said Poisson. “We spend a lot on heating and cooling the stations, so we need to be as efficient as possible; and, take advantage of funding opportunities when we can. We always make good use of the funds,” he concluded. 

The stations Poisson mentions are located across the state and house high tech and costly instruments that must be kept at constant temperatures year round to work properly. The instruments measure the air’s particulate matter, ozone levels and other air pollutants.  Particulate matter and ozone are two significant contributors to air pollution, which affect public health as well as the environment. The monitoring equipment collects real time data used to issue bad weather alerts, which are critical for persons living with respiratory illness, like COPD or asthma; the elderly; infants; and others most at risk. “We say you can live three days without water; but only three minutes without air,” quipped Poisson.

In addition to identifying days when the air quality is poor, the data drives science and public policy. For instance, when it was determined that automobiles were major contributors to polluted air, a federal law was passed that required autos to be equipped with catalytic converters that reduce emissions of three harmful compounds found in car exhaust: Carbon monoxide (a poisonous gas) Nitrogen oxides (a cause of smog and acid rain) Hydrocarbons (a cause of smog) .

Most of the stations’ data is measured, recorded and sent to the NHDES facility in Concord electronically in real time. There are a couple of stations, though with equipment that requires someone to manually collect the sample on site, and bring the data back to be interpreted and reported.

Some of the air monitoring stations were built in the 1970’s, when the program began as a result of the federal Clean Air Act, which was enacted during the Nixon administration.

“Many of the stations have or had baseboard electric heat and window unit air conditioning,” said Perkins. “We have changed those to mini splits at some of the stations. Mini splits serve both functions, heating and cooling. They are much more efficient. Now the old technology window units and baseboard systems are reserved for use only as back up during periods of extreme heat or cold.”

Another improvement has been the addition of solar panels to two stations.

The solar panels significantly shave off energy use. “Our electric bill would be much higher than it is because the instruments run 24/7, which includes the higher priced peak-hours,” said Perkins. The station at Pack Monadnock, for instance, saved a good third of its electric bill since efficiency improvements were made.

Their efforts are paying off. The cost of the solar panels was to have a 13-year pay back. It is on schedule to actually have a pay back of 11 years. The energy cost savings was $2,400 in the last year alone. The panels have a 25-year expected lifetime, which puts them on track to save at least $33,600 before the panels need to be replaced. When there is construction, such as adding the solar panels – the individuals who work for the program do the installation and electrical work themselves. This is a huge cost savings measure.

As the instruments wear out, they are replaced with more energy efficient devices. “Whenever a new equipment purchase is necessary, we keep energy efficiency in mind,” said Poisson.  “We always do our homework on that. With technological advances, newer equipment can often do the same work that it would take two older instruments to do.

 

The Air Monitoring Program occasionally needs to rebuild or replace the buildings that house the equipment.  “We see huge savings in the newer buildings,” said Perkins.  Some of the older buildings are not up to newer energy code, but they are grandfathered in. “When deciding between replacing the building and foregoing the purchase of a needed piece of equipment, we go with the equipment. We just have to make hard choices. We want to get the best data possible.” As science advances, so does the equipment.  It measures more, sometimes it is more energy efficient, sometimes not.

The program has received level funding for the last 15 years, which is a misleading term. The funding remains the same from year to year, but the price of monitoring the air increases by higher costs of energy, equipment, personnel and maintenance.

Kudos to the Air Monitoring Program. The program has been so passionate and effective with their efforts that they have received national awards and have been asked to give demonstrations to similar programs in other states.