The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) was awarded to the city in fall 2009, prior to Jon Burke’s arrival in South Bend.  It was a multi-faceted grant that accounted for the creation of the SBMEO, the building retrofits, a traffic synchronization project, all of the work for the hydroelectric installations, the building energy audits, as well as our strategic energy plan.

The Building Retrofit project sought to improve energy efficiency in 5 high energy consumers within the city, including the MLK Center, the Charles Black Recreation Center, the Park Maintenance facility, Fire Station 6, and Central Services Administration Offices.  These facilities were chosen not only for their great need, but also because the work done would see the largest return for the least amount of investment.  The retrofit portion of the EECBG grant was $126,000.

At the MLK Center specifically, we installed 30 high bay induction lights which use half of the electricity of their High Pressure Sodium counterparts (200watts down from 400watts+ previously).  While the Energy Audit Report, conducted in summer 2011, will give the most information on the subject, there are many more standard fluorescent tube lighting fixtures that need updating at the MLK Center.  The Charles Black Center had a similar upgrade, in that only their gym lights were exchanged and the rest of the facility still needs upgrades.  The Park Maintenance facility had the most high bay lights installed (they were upgraded in the carpentry shop, the main storage area, and the garage itself).  The offices there already utilized higher efficiency fluorescent tube lighting and they have great occupancy awareness for lighting.  Central Services was the only facility that installed just the higher efficiency fluorescent tube lights (32 Watt T12 bulbs replaced by 25 Watts T8 bulbs), with the garage areas remaining untouched.  Fire Station 6 had the most work done, having solar tube installed in the apparatus bay, a new roof and insulation, as well as lighting upgrades throughout.  After 2 months of looking at the new energy bills for Fire Station 6, we are seeing a 46% reduction in gas usage for December and a 40% reduction for January.  Lighting upgrades at all facilities are showing generally a 10%-20% reduction (as high as 35% at Fire Station 6) in electricity usage.  We predict that with providing some user training, these numbers will steadily show a greater savings.

The SBMEO is looking forward to creating more energy solutions that optimize our buildings and conserve our valuable resources.  A Green Ribbon Cutting ceremony to celebrate the completion of this project is planned for Thursday, February 23 from 3:00-4:00pm at the MLK Center.  The ceremony will highlight the new lighting used throughout these facilities.  If you have any questions regarding the Retrofit project or any of the other SBMEO projects, please don’t hesitate to write to energy@southbendin.gov.

Trees make a significant impact on the microclimate, the energy use, the health, and the safety of the communities they beautify.  At least intrinsically, it seems like societies have always know this.  Zoning ordinances, in an attempt to ensure their inclusion in all building projects, have inadvertently and most unfortunately, reduced the understood value of urban forests to a list of minimum requirements.  With continued research validating them, which among other benefits provides concrete monetary reasoning, the stock of urban forests is slowly rising.

To make sure everyone is on the same page, an urban forest is a collection of trees that grow within a city and its  surrounding community.  A broader definition includes any planting areas growing in and around the community and the term can also describe areas whose ecosystems are inherited from leftover undeveloped green space.  This includes but is not limited to street trees, foundation plantings for buildings, parks, and any native areas such as river corridors.

All trees provide benefits to their ecosystems.  In an urban forest, however, those benefits are even more significant, ranging from ecological services to economic perks.  This increased benefit stems from the overall lack of green space in urban areas, just how harsh a microclimate those areas are, and how systemic of an impact green space makes.  Urban forests play an important role in ecology and influence human habitats in many ways: they filter air, water, and sunlight while providing habitat for animals and recreational area for people.  They moderate local climate, slowing wind and stormwater, and shading homes and businesses to conserve energy.  Commonly acknowledged, they are critical in cooling the urban heat island effect, thus potentially reducing the number of unhealthful ozone days that plague major cities in peak summer months.  A 2001 study from the National Laboratory in Berkley, California shows a 25% reduction in net cooling and heating energy use in urban landscapes.

Impact on Urban Heat Island Effect

How is that reduction achieved?  One reason is that urban shade trees offer significant benefits in reducing HVAC demand and improving urban air quality by reducing smog.  Another reason is the direct and indirect buffering of the elements including:

• Reduced solar heat gain through windows, walls, and roofs by shading
• Reducing the radiant heat gain from the surroundings by shading
• Reducing the outside air infiltration rate by lowering ambient wind speeds
• Reducing the heat gain into buildings by lowering ambient temperatures through evapotranspiration in summer
• In some cases, increasing the latent air-conditioning load by adding moisture to the air through evapotranspiration

Strategies that increase urban vegetation and the reflectance of roofs and paved surfaces reduce energy consumption city-wide, and have significant impacts on individual homeowners and commercial consumers.  Collectively, an urban forest mitigates the magnitude of the urban heat island by reducing the heat balance of the entire city.