Contacts:
Karl Walquist (775) 834-3891 (Sierra Pacific)
Jane Tors (775) 784-4941, ext. 222 (University of Nevada, Reno)

New energy efficient fluorescent lights installed at the University of Nevada, Reno, campus are expected to reduce the school's annual electric bill by approximately $90,630, and to result in additional operational savings of $14,400 per year.

The university also earned a $10,000 incentive check for the lighting retrofit project from Sierra Pacific Power Company's Sure Bet energy efficiency program. New fluorescent and high efficiency “induction” lamps will reduce the university's electric usage by approximately 1.13 million kilowatt hours per year. The total cost of the lighting retrofit project was $623,107.

Siemens Building Technologies, the contractor for the project, replaced 615 outdoor pole lamps on 400 poles and 3,780 interior lights in 16 buildings located throughout the campus.

"The Sure Bet program is designed to assist commercial customers in identifying energy efficiency projects and to underwrite partial funding of those projects,"explained Bob Balzar, director of energy efficiency and customer strategy for Sierra Pacific and its sister company in Las Vegas, Nevada Power Company.

Balzar said the Sure Bet program is expected to save approximately 16 million kilowatt hours of electricity in northern Nevada during 2005, or enough electricity to power 1,600 homes for a year.

According to Greg Battaglia, director of facilities maintenance for the University of Nevada, the school has invested about $15 million in energy efficiency improvements since 1992, primarily in lighting and heating and cooling retrofits, resulting in annual energy savings of $2.5 million.

"This is an ongoing effort at the university,"Battaglia said."We began our energy efficiency‘partnership' with Sierra Pacific in 1992 and we've been involved in energy efficiency projects ever since."