An energy savings project that had been presented to the Knox County Building Committee earlier in the year is moving forward.
Orry Cummings with SmartWatt presented the committee with a qualification package for his company to do the work. SmartWatt was the only firm to respond to the request for qualifications for the project.
The next step, Cummings said, was for a detailed investment grade audit to be completed over the next several months that would then require SmartWatt and contractors to go over each facility looking for savings.
“So what we’ll do is we’ll go through all the county facilities,” Cummings told the Building Committee. “We’ll actually put up instrumentation in all the buildings that test light levels, occupancy, heating/cooling, [and] relative humidity. So we’ll collect data for all the facilities.”
Data collected will lead to giving the county hard numbers that would show the utility bill savings for each facility. The board then will be able to customize the project depending and savings would be seen depending on the level of work done.
“The thing we’ve been discussing from the beginning is… there’s no upfront cost. This is a budget-neutral project. It’s required to be budget neutral per the legislation. So that’s what we’re going to bring to you guys, and you guys get to select what you would like to move forward with.”
Board members had concerns over the use of local subcontractors, which Cummings assured them that using local people was the intention.
The committee approved moving forward with a unanimous voice vote. There was nothing more on the agenda for the building committee.
Following the committee meeting, the Knox County Board went into a closed session. Following that, the board went back into open session to approve a collective bargaining contract with Operating Engineers Local for the county landfill.
