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Hocking College Switches Light Systems For Savings


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A new energy project at Hocking College aims to shed some light on savings to the tune of more than a half-million dollars.

Vice President of Administrative Services Myriah Short says the college will save more than $600,000 during the next 10 years by swapping out light bulbs, among other changes. 
 
Short says the school is already starting the project which is estimated to take about six to eight months to complete. 
 
"What will come out of this project is, preliminarily, we are going to be changing our lighting systems on campus and all of our campus buildings and we're going to be adding building automations systems in about four of our buildings across campus as well to increase our energy efficiency," said Short.
 
Short says the changes support a law that requires state-funded facilities to reduce their energy consumption by 20 percent no later that 2014.  
 
Former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland signed the initiative into law in January 2007.
 
According to Short, Hocking College is entering into a performance contract which allows for the improvements to pay for themselves with the money they save. 
 
"The project initially will be paid for through the Ohio Air Quality council. We receive bonds from them and then the energy savings that materializes from this project are used then to pay off those bonds through Ohio Air Quality," said Short.
 
American Electric Power will also be helping fund the project with a rebate program for each light bulb the college changes out. 
 
Short says this will lead to an additional $49,000 in funding.