The County of Sonoma has pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 25% below 1990 levels by 2015. This calls for a 25% higher reduction than AB 32, and will be completed by 2015 instead of 2020. The Agency is continually and actively investigating new technologies to reduce their carbon footprint and make this goal feasible.
The Agency has installed three 1.9 MW solar photovoltaic (PV) systems at its facilities to help offset its electiricty consumption. Located at the Agency's administration building, Airport-Wikiup-Larkfield Wastewater Treatment Plant and Sonoma Valley Wastewater Treatment Plant, these systems generate 3.3 GWh of energy each year. The Agency expects to save an estimated $2.3 million in operational costs over the life of the systems.
The Agency has also retrofitted its administration building with energy efficient technologies including:
- Window Film
Window film serves as a buffer against external temperatures, reducing the energy and money required to maintain occupant comfort. The film applied by the Agency has a lifetime of 15 years and saves the Agency approximately 30,000 kWh annually.
- Lighting Retrofits
The Agency has implemented aggressive lighting retrofits including delamping of low-use areas and the replacement of traditional linear fluorescent lighting with LEDs. More than 600 fixtures have been retrofitted, providing savings of approximately 62,000 kWh annually. Each of the LED tubes used to replace fluorescent tubes have a lifetime of 50,000 hours, twice as long as the best fluorescent tubes. These LED tubes alone save the Agency approximately 300 kWh annually, assuming 40 hours of weekly operation for 52 weeks.
