Bayview Hall shows how to save energy and money

Published 6:00 pm Tuesday, September 4, 2001

“Want to save money on energy? The Bayview Hall Association has just shown the community how it’s done.The Association’s Duke LeBaron proudly displays the historic hall’s June-July light bill, which describes in simple terms the energy changes at the hall.During the same two-month period in 2000, Bayview Hall used 1,330 kilowatt hours of electricity. This year, the figure was only 330 hours.Last year, Bayview Hall averaged 21.5 kilowatt hours of use per day. This year the figure plummeted to 5.5 hours per day.The bottom line in the power bill: Bayview Hall wasn’t billed anything for electrical usage in June-July. In fact, thanks to a conservation bonus from Puget Sound Energy, the hall was given a credit of $10.97 to apply toward its next bill. That’s a huge difference from last year, when the hall paid $74.45 for electricity in the June-July period.Bayview Hall did not expend a lot of money in conservation efforts to dramatically reduce its energy consumption. LeBaron said they simply switched from traditional incandescent light bulbs to energy efficient fluorescent lights.We did a campaign to install fluorescents, LeBaron said. Bulbs were donated to the hall through a special program, and last May the old 60 and 100 watt bulbs were replaced by fluorescent bulbs that run on 17 watts of power but produce the equivalent of 75 watts of light.LeBaron said 50 fluorescent bulbs were installed, which resulted in the low power bill.LeBaron said the effort shows how much energy, and money, can be saved by switching to fluorescent lights. And with Puget Sound Energy seeking an 18 percent rate hike in November, LeBaron said there’s no better time than now to make the switch. “