Doing More with Less

On a mission to find out as much about energy savings in corrections as possible, we attended an ACA workshop on "Best Practices: A Review of Facilities" presented by Robert Schwartz, VP of the Justice Group at HOK, Inc., and Eric Hackman, Project Manager with Tower Pinkster. They reviewed three facility projects in three separate counties in Michigan and gave us project highlights including the energy savings established due to the new construction. Here are a few notes:

Midland County Jail:

• Created with a compact floor plan which encourages energy efficiency
• Designed with extensive day lighting to reduce the need for artificial lighting, saving electricity
• Installed a ground source heat pump
• Ozone laundry system, allowing cleaner laundry washed with cold water, reducing the demand for warm water
• Light harvesting - system automatically turns the electric lights off when a pre-determined amount of light is detected in a given space
• Design avoids inmate cells on the exterior wall, thus reducing the amount of energy needed to heat the cells in the winter
• Polished concrete floors can be cleaned with a wet mop, reducing the need for chemicals

Midland county energy costs:

• $185 annual energy costs
• $1.75 per square foot/year
• $740 per bed/year
  
• $57K annually in energy savings
• 25% savings of a "typical" building

Washtenaw County Justice Complex:

The new Justice Complex added 30% more space to the building's footprint but created a 20% energy savings from $2.43 to $1.93 per square foot by using the following practices:

• Installed new "air handling" units
• High efficiency boilers
• Ozone laundry system