.jpg "Presenter John Klein of JDM Associates")
In its effort to cut the government’s energy costs, the Virgin Islands Energy Office held a Government Facility Managers Training workshop on St. Croix on Sept. 15. The training in energy efficiency methods is one of the governor’s priority items and attracted 20 government officials, responsible for buildings in various government agencies. A previous workshop on St. Thomas had about 36 participants.
The training was funded through the Government Energy Demand Reduction Program administered by the VIEO. The goal for the course was for facility managers to have a better understanding of the importance of benchmarking energy and water consumption in their buildings and to be able to identify ways in which to reduce energy use. It was also intended to raise awareness about low cost/no cost solutions and technologies to reduce consumption.
If managers understand energy consumption and identify ways to reduce it; the government can use the money saved to purchase something else, according to presenter John Klein, founder and principal of JDM Associates, an environmental and energy consulting firm. He added, “This is all about people. We want you to leave here with a game plan.”
The short-term goal of the workshop was to help reduce energy consumption in the central government by five percent by December 2009, through employee behavior modification, building walk-thru-energy audits, low/no-cost measures, energy consumption monitoring, etc. The workshop was also part of the Energy Office’s effort to comply with Act 6978, which mandates that the Energy Office reduce government power consumption by 20 percent by 2012.
The workshop covered a variety of topics such as habits that cost no money such as turning off lights and air conditioning when not in use to potential investments such as purchasing motion ,detectors and LED lighting.
Managers brought into the discussion the problems of disposing of old lighting fixtures and bulbs and the inability to get higher ups to approve budgeting for energy efficiency measures.
JDM Associates will also conduct two more workshops this fall sponsored by the VIEO. One will be on St. Croix and one on St. Thomas, and will target the construction, development and banking communities.
For more information, contact the VIEO at 773-1082 on St. Croix or 774-3320 on St. Thomas or visit its Web site at www.vienergy.org
