North Battleford Energy Conservation Project

The North Battleford Energy Conservation Project was a three year pilot project to test an innovative approach to financing energy conservation. Starting with low cost measures the first year, 60% of the savings generated from each year's energy conservation measures were reinvested in new retrofits the next year.

Project History
North Battleford is a small city in north-western Saskatchewan with a population of approximately 14,200 people. Like other municipalities, North Battleford was looking for ways to reduce its expenditures without impacting on the quality of municipal services.

In 1993 a councilor for the City, heard about Destination Conservation (DC), an energy conservation project that the Saskatchewan Environmental Society was doing with schools in the Wilkie region of Saskatchewan. He found the approach very interesting and contacted the SES about the possibility of doing a similar energy conservation program for the City of North Battleford.

Although the DC approach worked well with schools, it had never been tried with a municipality. However, representatives of both the SES and the City of North Battleford felt that the approach would be worth trying. If it did work, the approach might provide a model by which other small municipalities could improve their energy performance.

Project Detail
The project, announced on April 22, 1994, was designed so that 60% of each year's savings would be reinvested in new retrofits, with the remaining savings being divided between the City of North Battleford (30%) and the SES (10%). Between April and the end of 1994, an energy audit was conducted, as well as year one retrofits conducted on nine city buildings. In addition, educational sessions were held with all the city staff. Monitoring of the savings began on January 1, 1995. The first year's savings measures consisted mostly of low-cost/no-cost measures such as delamping and improvements in building management. Savings for the first year were $18,000.

Year two retrofits included such things as lighting retrofits, upgrading of electric motor and pump/fan efficiency, upgrading heating systems, and selected addition of insulation and poly barriers. Savings jumped to over $44,000 in year two.

Monitoring for year three covered the period from September 1, 1997 to August 31, 1998. The calculated savings for year three were over $50,000. These savings do not, however, represent the full impact of the year three measures since some of them did not get installed until close to the end of the monitoring period. Year three included additional lighting retrofits, replacement of larger electric motors and heating system upgrades.

Economic Implications
The overall administrative costs for the project were $27,600, which was paid for by the project partners. This covered costs such as the energy audit, engineering report and associated expenses, the educational sessions and associated expenses, secretarial expenses, and some travel.

Over the three one year monitoring periods, accumulated savings of $112,000 were achieved. According to the agreed-on reinvestment formula, $69,900 was invested into energy conservation measures. Another $10,530 went to the SES, while the City of North Battleford obtained an immediate benefit of $31,600. This would have been more than enough to pay for the administrative costs of the project if they had not been paid for by the project partners.
North Battleford is now enjoying reduced energy bills of $52,000 per year!  That is based on 1999 energy costs.  As energy costs increase, so do the savings.

Project Partners
Saskatchewan Energy Conservation and Development Authority (SECDA - since disbanded)
SaskPower SaskEnergy
Natural Resources Canada
Saskatchewan Energy and Mines

For more information contact:

Angie Bugg, Energy Conservation Project Coordinator
(306) 665-1915 
angieb@environmentalsociety.ca

Bernie Albers, City of North Battleford
(306) 445-9431 

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