A $2 fix could cut $49,944 a year off Bethel's fitness center energy bill

Two changes costing a combined two dollars could take about $49,944 a year off the energy bill at Bethel's YK Fitness Center, according to an energy audit going before the city's Community Parks and Recreation Committee on Monday.

The changes are all schedule and setpoint. Tell the building's automation system when people are actually in the building so it stops heating an empty one. Raise the temperature at which the heat-recovery system delivers its air, to 70 or 75 degrees. And let the lobby, locker rooms and exercise rooms cool down when nobody is using them.

The bill they would come off is large. The audit puts the pool and fitness building's predicted annual energy cost at $419,207, modeled from past utility data and the rates in effect at the time. Heating oil accounts for $348,023 of that, 83 percent, against $71,084 for electricity. Oil was running $5.77 a gallon when the audit was done.

The rest of the audit is less encouraging. Lighting retrofits would take somewhere between eight and 73 years to pay for themselves. A setback thermostat in the fan room is projected to save nothing at all.

The committee meets at 6 pm Monday, Sept. 14, on Chief Eddie Hoffman Highway, with Zoom access available. Written comment is due to the city by 4 pm that day.