He’s seeing the light: Scarborough senior driving budget change, one bulb at a time

SCARBOROUGH — Last fall, when Scarborough High School senior Daniel Farley out-essayed his Environmental Club of Scarborough peers for a 50-hour internship with the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, he could have killed time on almost anything to earn his $500 stipend.

After all, he was pretty much left to his own devices, allowed to come up with any project. But Farley, 17, who dreams of being an environmental engineer, wanted to do something significant to earn his keep.

The result was a research project that could save his school district thousands of dollars per year on energy savings. Farley’s idea – the light bulb when off, figuratively speaking, during a visit to his college of choice, University of New Hampshire – is to replace the 45 metal halide lights in the high school parking lot with 55 LED lights made by Roadway Lighting. It’s a pitch Farley will now make to the school finance committee, as he tries to get the plan included in next year’s budget.

 “I am very happy how this has turned out so far, because I’ve always wanted to do something to make a big difference like this,” said Farley. “With this type of project, I can see Scarborough High School becoming a beta test site of all high schools in the state.”

Todd Jepson, facilities director for Scarborough schools, estimates that each overhead light in the lot burns for 3,448 hours per year. Farley’s data shows that by replacing those 400 watt bulbs, each of which requires a 60 watt ballast assembly and lasts just three to four years, with 200 watt LED lights, which last 20 years, would save the school $1,750 per year just on bulb replacement costs. 

“A lot of that money is in the ballasts, which are way more expensive than the lights themselves, and it doesn’t count the cost of electricians to keep up with the maintenance,” Farley said.

Annual energy use to illuminate the parking lot would drop from 71,363 killowat hours to 31,027 – dropping electricity costs from $9,991 to $4,344. What’s more, annual carbon emissions from the power plants generating that electricity would drop from 49.2 metric tons to 21.4.

“It’s terrific that he’s been able to do something that is actually making a case in the town for making some changes,” said civil engineer Ann Archino Howe, who works part time as the energy sustainability coordinator for both Scarborough and South Portland.

“This is turning into an actual thing, and not just theoretical,” she said.

“Some money had been included in the school budget, added to some that they already have set aside, that should make this a reality,” said Archino Howe. “Exactly which lights are included, and how many, will depend exact funding, but he’s excited about it. I’m excited about it. It may be something that we want to recommend for the town to think about doing as well.”

“I think it’s just phenomenal,” said Town Councilor Judith Roy, who serves as liaison to the town energy committee.  Particularly impressive, she said, is Farley’s calculation that the switch to LED lights could drop total energy consumption in the high school parking lot by as much as 43 percent.

Of course, LED lights to come with an up-front cost for installation, a price tag that for the high school would approach $50,000.

“The only reason this hasn’t happened before is just because of budget issues,” said Farley, who calculates the first-year cost of LED lights (installation plus energy use) at $53,844, compared to annual costs now of $11,741 in energy use and bulb/ballast replacement.

“You have to think long term,” he said, suggesting that money spent not on lights could be spent on students.

However, while the costs to run and maintain the metal halide lights remains constant, the longer life and lower energy usage of the LED lights drops the annual costs to $4,344 starting the year after installation.

“In six to seven years, these lights will pay for themselves in energy savings alone, not counting the savings in maintenance,” Farley said. “You’re saving a tremendous amount of money every year. I don’t want to say it’s a no-brainer, but you save a lot of money.”

But don’t LEDs give off less light, which maybe is a bad idea for a public lot?

“No,” Farley said, “because the metal haloids that we have out there now actually dim over time. The amount of lumens they put out gradually diffuses as the bulb fades, where the LED lights have a constant flow of light and a very wide lumens-per-square-foot range.”

Farley said his intern project has done its job, teaching him not only how to prepare an energy efficiency assessment, but also how to deal with competing interests outside the classroom.

“It was a lot of just talking to different people, including all the different manufactures,” he said. “There was a lot of back-and-forth between a lot of different companies and town officials.”

Now, the next step will be a presentation before the school finance committee in the coming weeks, in hope of shepherding his proposal through the budget process, all the way through school board, Town Council and public validation votes.

Rick Meinking, chairman of Scarborough’s energy committee, has suggested that if the LED project survives the budget ax, Farley should finish out his internship heading up the request-for-proposal process that will lead to actual implementation.  That, says Farley, is OK with him.

“I’ve always been interested in preservation of the environment and thinking about finding space for the population to grow as well,” he said. “But this experience has been fantastic.

“It’s great to be able to go into college with some sort of understanding of what you might be doing in real-world applications of your degree,” Farley said. “To have some real world experience and a concrete example of this is what you can do – it’s nice.”