Correctional Facilities in New York Increase Energy Efficiency

NEW YORK — The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) recently completed a series of energy efficiency improvements at several of its correctional facilities, which will ensure long-term savings for the state.

The work was done in collaboration with Constellation Energy, a utility company based in Baltimore that independently operated over 35 power plants in 11 states before being purchased by Exelon, a utility based in Chicago.

In 2001, Constellation Energy began working with the DOCCS to find energy savings at the Green Haven Correctional Facility in Stormville, in cooperation with the New York State Energy Research Development Authority (NYSERDA), a public benefit corporation established in 1975 to help the state reduce its petroleum consumption. The mission has broadened since then, and the company now defines its goal as helping New York “meet its energy goals: reducing energy consumption, promoting the use of renewable energy sources, and protecting the environment.”

NYSERDA is primarily funded through the New York System Benefits Charge, a surcharge on the vast majority of energy customers, with the intention of funding “public policy initiatives not expected to be adequately addressed by New York’s competitive electricity markets,” according to the New York Public Service Commission, which established the program in 1996. The program has been reauthorized multiple times and the current renewal authorizes it to continue through 2016.

Louis J. Hutchinson III, vice president for public sector and energy efficiency operations at Constellation Energy, told The New York Times that energy improvements at prisons made particular sense because these facilities operated around the clock, compared to your average business, which might only need its lights on for 10 hours a day.

“If you looked at a similarly sized commercial building, its usage would probably be in the range of 60 percent, compared to 100 percent of time usage in the prison,” Hutchinson III explained.

The Green Haven project involved a $2.9 million investment in efficiency improvements, including “the installation of a 500 HP summer boiler at the central plant, the commissioning of a condensing heat exchanger in the boiler plant, expansion of the heating controls system and improvements to the steam heating controls system and improvements to the steam distribution system,” according to a statement from Constellation Energy.

The collaboration continued with another $3.4 million project, which focused on replacing the existing power plant with a 500 kilowatt combined heat and power plant at the Bedford/Taconic Correctional Facilities. It also included “condensate system improvements, which dramatically reduced plant make-up; No. 6 to No. 2 fuel conversion at the central plant; energy-efficient lighting; and enhanced boiler and HVAC controls,” according to a Constellation Energy statement. The project is expected to save the state $450,000 annually.

Finally, a $2 million design-build project at the well-known Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining was recently completed. The work included upgrades to the building management systems, which expanded the existing control system to 17 additional buildings, totaling 744,000 square feet.

This enhancement involved altering or replacing “all valves, actuators, sensors, panels, fiber, Ethernet cabling, hubs, switches, front-end control and graphics to enable the facility to have temperature control over these buildings,” according to Constellation Energy.

The utility company also conducted energy-efficiency upgrades on over 2,300 light fixtures and replaced failed variable speed drives on a hot-water system that provides services to three buildings covering 145,000 square feet.

All told, the three projects cost over $8 million and will bring in energy savings of more than $1 million each year. The energy savings were guaranteed by Constellation Energy, meaning the DOCCS now has a locked in rate for the three facilities. NYSERDA also helped the DOCCS retain a financing deal with GE Capital, the retail financial services company, based in Orlando, Fla. That agreement will allow the DOCCS to pay for the work over a 14-year period. This means the state will achieve some of its energy savings immediately as it will be receiving more savings per year than it is paying for the work. By comparison, if the projects were paid for all at once, it would take eight years for the savings to have a positive impact on the annual budget.

Constellation Energy recently began work on an additional project, the $10.5 million renovation of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. This jail, owned by the federal government, not the DOCCS, will be on an 11-year repayment plan. The work will include replacing 20- to 23-year-old light fixtures and air-conditioning chillers, saving 15 percent of the facility’s energy expenditures. Additional replacement of plumbing fixtures will conserve 32 percent of the detention center’s current water output. That project alone will save an additional $1 million per year.