Cities and towns find savings in energy efficiency efforts

Cities and towns find savings in energy efficiency efforts

Staff Report

GARDNER — By upgrading to energy-efficient lighting and heating equipment, local municipalities and nonprofit organizations will gain more than $2.5 million in annual energy savings due to energy efficiency programs supported by Unitil over the past year.

In that period, Unitil completed 27 energy-efficiency projects — from lighting to heating — in Fitchburg, Ashby and Gardner.

In Gardner, the company helped covert the middle school from oil to four natural gas boilers.

“These  projects not only will use energy more efficiently, which reduces cost, but will improve the comfort of the facilities,” said John DiNapoli, municipal and community manager for Unitil.


Unitil provided a total of $990,000 in rebates to help reduce the payback period on the new equipment, with officials estimating that the projects will collectively save more than $33 million in energy costs over the life of the new equipment — anticipated to be about 13 years.

Additional local improvements include, replacing nearly 100 lighting fixtures with light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, at Lunenburg’s Public Works Department, swapping out 3,650 fixtures with LEDs in various schools in Fitchburg and installingd 32 energy-efficiency fixtures at the Ashby Police Department .

Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical High School recently completed a major overhaul of its heating and cooling system and installed 1,100 new LEDs, while Fitchburg District Court added 475 LEDs.

Mr. DiNapoli said the utility company also provides numerous energy-efficiency incentives to businesses and homeowners.