Dear Budget Cutters,

I am a Douglas County, Georgia resident concerned with the outcome of the upcoming vote to change the school week to a 4 day week. I ask that you please vote against changing the school week to a 4 day week. While this may require budget cuts in other areas, I truly believe you can achieve a world class educational system without cutting the education of my children or friends' & family members' teaching careers.

If I may suggest a more viable solution, I would certainly like to have the opportunity to do so. My solution has been proven to safe money, and projects to implement my solution are in full swing at the offices & facilities of major corporations & organizations such as General Motors, the CIA, FBI, The White House, etc.

My solution involves cutting electricity costs associated with the daily operations of a nationwide education system & public buildings. My solution is to replace all the high voltage & high maintenance magnetically ballasted, florescent light bulbs in our all public buildings with electronically ballasted, florescent light bulbs mounted with parabolic reflectors which enable the same amount of light to be cast from their fixtures at a fraction of the cost.

Here's the math behind the old lighting technologies:
Currently our public buildings use T12 & T12e bulbs w/magnetic ballasts for ceiling lights, and they use incandescent bulbs in exit signs (that burn 24/7).

A T12 Bulb (12/8ths of an inch in diameter... 1.5in) uses 40 watts to operate. A T12e bulb (e is for energy saving) uses 35 watts to operate. Usually four(4) T12 bulbs are used in a standard ceiling light fixture. With Magnetic ballasts, you can only power 2 bulbs per ballast. Magnetic ballasts require 25 watts of energy each to operate two(2) T12 bulbs. The total energy cost of the current lighting technology we are using is 190 - 210 watts per ceiling light fixture. So 10 fixtures use 2.1 kilowatt hours of electricity per hour. From http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html we see that the average cost per kwh is 8.35 cents. So 10 fixtures cost 17.47 cents per hour to operate. Operating ten(10) T12 fixtures for 12 hours a day cost about $2.10 per day.

An exit sign uses about 30 watts of power to operate. For every 10 exit signs we are paying $0.60 per day. (30w * 10 signs / 1000 w/hr * 24 hours per day * 8.35 cents/kwhr)

Lets be conservative and say there are only 1 million of these ceiling light fixtures in use in Georgia public buildings. That equates to a cost of $210,000/day (1,000,000 / 10 * $2.10) in operating expenses just to turn the ceiling lights on. Supposing there are only 200,000 exit signs, the exit signs are costing us $12,000/day (200,000 / 10 * $0.60). Total, that's $222,000/day or $58.98 million/year ([52 weeks * 5 days/wk * $210,000/day] + [365 days/year * $12,000/day]).


Now to the math behind the newer lighting technologies:
We know we can replace the current fixtures consisting of four(4) T12 or T12e bulbs and two(2) magnetic ballasts with fixtures consisting of two(2) T8 bulbs using one(1) electronic ballast. We also know we can replace the current bulbs in exit signs with red or white LEDs.

A T8 bulb (8/8ths of an inch in diameter... 1.0in) uses 25 watts. Usually two(2) T8 bulbs will be used in the newer ceiling light fixtures. With electronic ballasts, you can power anywhere from 1 to 2 bulbs per ballast. Electronic ballasts require one(1) watt of energy each to operate one(1) T8 bulb. The total energy cost of the newer technology we could be using is 52 watts per fixture. So 10 fixtures would use 0.52 kilowatt hours of electricity per hour. The same fixtures would cost 4.34 cents per hour to operate. Operating ten(10) T8 fixtures for 12 hours a day would cost about $0.52 per day.

An exit sign retrofitted with red LEDs uses less than 4 watts per hour. An exit sign retrofitted with white LEDs uses less than 1 watt per hour. For every 10 red LED exit signs we would be paying $0.06 per day (1w * 10 signs / 1000 w/hr * 24 hours per day * 8.35 cents/kwhr).

So that equates to $52,000/day (1,000,000 / 10 * $0.52) for the newer ceiling fixtures plus $1200/day for the red LED exit signs. The total of which is $53,200 per day, for a savings of $168,800 per day, and $45.022 million/year. Consider each state to have the same amount of bulbs, and you can multiply that number by 50 states, equaling a total yearly country wide savings of $2.251 billion/year.



MORE FACTS:
1. Our current magnetic ballasts require load balancing so if 1 ballast is running 2 tubes and 1 tube burns out, you have to replace the bad tube before the ballast goes bad.

2. If a magnetic ballast burns out you have to pay an electrician to replace the ballast which takes about 30 minutes per fixture if they are good at what they are doing.

3. The newer electronic ballasts don't require load balancing, they don't create light flicker (very important to bulb life), they allow the lights to turn on instantly (no warm up / slow start ups), and they last 5+ times longer than magnetic ballasts.

4. The current magnetic ballasts last about 5 years if they are kept in balance the entire time.

5. It takes a qualified electrician about 30 minutes to 1 hour to replace a magnetic ballast that has burned out.

6. Current exit sign bulbs & T12 bulbs burn out all the time, requiring a full time maintenance person per building that is in operation just to change bulbs.

7. T12 bulbs cost more than T8 bulbs and you'll be using half as many bulbs, and replacing them less often.

8. The new T8 bulbs will last longer because of the electronic ballasts & because they are smaller and use less power

9. The new exit sign LEDs have warranties of over 15 years! Some with warranties of 30 years or more (you'll never hire a bulb changer again; not in your lifetime)

10. You can buy a kit to retrofit an exit sign for $20, and you can save over $20 in electricity the first year.

11. You can retrofit the current magnetic fixtures as they break. You'll only pay extra for the new ballasts & bulbs (assuming you currently stock magnetic ballasts and its going to cost you more to order new stock) because it takes the same amount of time to retrofit as it does to replace one of the current ballasts.

12. Using polished aluminum parabolic reflectors allows you to replace four(4) T12 bulbs with two(2) T8 bulbs. Otherwise you need four(4) T8 bulbs per retrofitted fixture.

13. If you prefer to retrofit everything now and save later, consider this. General Motors found that if they hired contractors to do the work, it would normally take about 1.5 to 2 years to get a %100 return on their investment (ROI). That's a 50% ROI the first two years, and then you start saving money big time every year thereafter!

14. We have more than 1 million of these fixtures in operation in each state. My math was conservatively low-balling the figure.

15. The money spent retrofitting would go into the pockets of American workers protected by unions getting decent benefits & salaries. These Americans would in turn spend the money they've made and stimulate the national economy as a whole. If an electrician makes $100, $33 comes out of his pay for taxes, social security, etc. If he spends the remaining $67 you'll get another 4% - 25% in sales tax, sin taxes, etc. So the governments will profit on both ends of this equation. This effectively increases the ROI for governments well beyond that of what General Motors expected with their projects.

16. Older magnetic ballasts were made with PCB coolants (30+ years ago). These have to disposed of as hazardous materials. Most of them already have been. The newer magnetic ballasts that are currently in place in the majority of our buildings do not contain hazardous materials and can be disposed of easily.

17. Retrofitting lights will reduce your "peak" electricity usage which, in some cases, determines your cost per kwh all year long.


Sincerely,
Michael Bentley
Owner of BentleyPC
404-702-2865