SAVE Award 2011 Ideas

Replace all lighting iwth LED lights where appropriate for the reduction of energy costs. Replacing incandescent bulbs with T4 lighting did not gain the level of savings required to equal the escalating cost of energy. The costs of the LED is going down, and this would result in a net decrease of energy use to the grid vice "maintaining" and slowing down the growth of power plants.

Install LED ligts both inside buildings as well as for street lantern and traffic lights on larger facilities. Both energy savings and life cycle analysis costs savings are significant. It also allows for intelligent lighting systems which shot down when use is not required.

The issue with CFL's the environmental factor due to the mercury. It is true that CFL's are energy efficient, however LED's take 50% less energy than CFL's and last 10 times longer. There is no mercury issue to deal with either and LED bulbs work with dimmer switches and are cool to the touch. CFL's take longer to warm up to light up a room and are usually too warm to remove soon after they are turned on. Link the LEDs... more »

I have over 2011 florescent light bulbs on my ship, the USCGC MELLON. Our data suggests that if we were to convert these lights from fluorescent lights to energy efficient light emitting diodes, we would "break even" in 16 months and save the Coast Guard 194,000 dollars over five years. If you translate that to the other 9 sister ships we have in this class alone, we would save 1.9 million dollars in fuel and power cost... more »

Through employment of simple conservational methods, the United States government stands to realize a reduced financial expenditure for the electrical services it purchases.

Such methods could include a sticker-like label for light switch plates that encourage staff to turn off the lights.

Another idea involves installing auto-off light switch modules that could be set to power down lighting a short duration of time... more »

Replacing all DoD lighting fixtures with LED fixtures would reduce the energy consumption of all DoD facilities by over 80% immediately. The cost of each fixture is less than $40usd to replace the energy equivalent currently being used. With each individual office holding more than 10 fixtures, this would dramatically decrease all energy consumption to 1/30th saving the DoD millions per installation and assist with "green"... more »