Look for the Simple Steps, Smart Savings sign when shopping for compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) and low-flow showerheads at several local retailers. The sign indicates products that are discounted as part of a Chelan County PUD program to bring savings to consumers.

Customers will find prices already marked down on compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), indoor hard-wired fixtures and low-flow showerheads. Markdowns range from about 50 cents below suggested retail for general purpose CFLs to up to $7 on energy-saving showerheads.

Items available through the Simple Steps, Smart Savings program include:

• Twist CFLs – Regular Twists, Daylight Twists and A-Lamps
• Specialty CFLs – Reflectors, Globes, Candelabras, Torpedo Bulbs and Outdoor Lighting
• Fixtures – Indoor Hard-Wired Fixtures
• Showerheads – Those using 2.0 gallons per minute or less (showerhead discounts available at Costco and Fred Meyer only)

To find the store nearest you, visit the PUD website. Remember to recycle your used CFLS at any PUD office.

A ductless heat pump, visible above the wood cabinet, provides quiet, efficient heating in the winter and cooling in the summer.

If you’ve got an aging baseboard or wall heating system in your home, you may be eligible for help replacing that system this year.

Chelan County PUD is planning a pilot program in 2012 to help install ductless heat pump systems. The PUD will offer rebates of approximately $750 per eligible household to help offset the cost of the units, which ranges from $3,000 to $5,000. Homeowners with electric baseboard or wall heaters would be given top consideration, but homes with other electric heat types may be eligible. Local contractors will be invited to participate in a training course to learn about installing and maintaining ductless heat pumps.

A ductless heat pump is a highly efficient and easily installed primary heating and cooling system for electrically heated homes. Ductless systems are ideal for replacing or supplementing less efficient electric baseboard or wall heaters (and window air conditioners in the summer).

Ductless systems operate using 25 percent to 50 percent less energy than electric resistance zonal and forced air systems. Regionally, use of a ductless heating and cooling system in a single-family home with zonal electric heat is estimated to save 3,500 kWh annually. Using Chelan PUD’s average cost of $0.03 per kilowattt hour, upgrading to a ductless heating and cooling system as a primary heat source can save approximately $105 per year. In addition, ductless heat pumps are safer, quieter, and heat rooms more efficiently than zonal heat. And they provide air conditioning in the summer.

If you are a Chelan County homeowner interested in upgrading from baseboard or wall heating systems to a ductless heat pump, send us an e-mail or call (509) 661-8008.

More information about how ductless heat pumps work, their costs and energy savings is available at goingductless.com.

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Students use 3D glasses to view the color spectrum.

PUD experts help students make sense of science

Attention Cashmere Middle School parents: If your seventh grader asks you for permission to ski behind a solar-powered car over the frozen highways of Alaska, blame Jim White.

White, a Chelan County PUD engineer, and Eric Sydenstricker, PUD technician, are helping students in Bob Martin’s seventh grade science class build their own solar-powered model cars. To introduce the concept, White showed the class a YouTube video of him ice-skiing behind a car that operates totally on solar energy. Not to be outdone, Sydenstricker led the class outdoors, putting his radio-controlled monster truck through a parking-lot snow bank to show off its road skills.

Pretty cool stuff, huh?

The Cashmere demonstration in January kicked off a pilot program that’s bringing PUD employees into classrooms at four middle schools this year. Ruth Erwert, recruiting program manager and Bob Bauer, communications specialist at the PUD, brought the idea to the North Central Educational Service District (ESD). Mechelle LaLanne, ESD science coordinator, worked with teachers and ESD staff to develop the program. Erwert’s goal is to make students aware of career opportunities and “build a pipeline of future workers,” she said. LaLanne’s goal is to place experts in the classrooms to complement the curriculum, which in seventh grade focuses on energy, machines and motion.

The other middle schools and their projects are:

Entiat, where students are working with teacher Kevin Jones to learn about electrical circuits and how they operate mechanical devices. PUD experts offering help and encouragement are John Sagerser, Paul Resler and Cheryl Hobson.

Pioneer in Wenatchee. Under teacher Carolyn Dotter, students plan to investigate the challenges of underwater welding and mechanics. PUD divers Donnie Lane and Brent Thrapp are assisting.

Orchard in Wenatchee. Teacher Dan Myers is working with his students to build a working model of Rocky Reach Dam. PUD employees on that project are Dan Martyn, Tim Halliday, Andy Lolos and Eric Ostrom.

PUD staff will be in the classrooms once a week for six to eight weeks. Then as soon as school is out, students can attend the Action Academy at Rocky Reach. For four half days during the week of June 18, they’ll show-and-tell about their projects, take tours of the dam, talk about how their classroom work correlates to work at the dam, and hear from more PUD staff about career options in other fields.

“Whether students attend a four-year college, a technical school, or stay in the community and apply for an apprenticeship or entry-level job, we want them to realize there are opportunities with our utility,” Erwert said.

This small photovoltaic system in Nahahum Canyon near Cashmere was one of four new solar installations added to the SNAP program in 2011.

Note: An earlier version of this story provided an incorrect figure for the number of new producers. The error has been corrected in this version.

Chelan County PUD’s SNAP program added five new private producers in 2011 — the most in any one year since SNAP began in 2001.

The PUD operates three hydropower projects so already is into renewable hydropower in a big way. SNAP — short for Sustainable Natural Alternative Power –  focuses on small-scale solar and wind power. 

A total of 47 schools, nonprofit agencies and individuals are producing power for the PUD through SNAP. Five new private producers joined the program in 2011: John Alt of Entiat, Dennis Vogt of Chelan, Regge Egger of Plain, Lauren Johnson and Barbara Rossing of Leavenworth, and Shlomo Freiman and Mindy Stern, who have a summer home in Cashmere. The five are generating solar with rooftop and pole-mounted systems; together they added 22 kilowatts of capacity to the SNAP program. 

Three of the four new producers are using solar modules and inverters manufactured in Washington state, making them eligible for the highest payouts available through the state’s renewable incentive program. Taking advantage of the state program, in addition to SNAP, brings an earlier payback and helps make the investment in solar equipment more cost-effective. 

While state payments come from the state’s utility tax fund, SNAP payments come from green-minded PUD customers who want to see new renewable resources developed. In the 2010-11 production year, customers contributed $25,506 to SNAP. 

There’s a place on the electric bill where customers can sign up to support SNAP in any amount. There’s also a spot on the PUD website where customers can sign up.  

The website is also the place to go if you’re looking for information on becoming a SNAP producer, or want to see facts and photos about producers in the program. 

In 2010-11, producers generated 117,792 kilowatt hours of electricity. To put that in perspective, that’s the average annual use of about six homes in Chelan County. “While that’s not a lot of power, that’s really not the point of the program,” said Susan Gillin, SNAP coordinator. “The point is to plant the seeds for a future resource that, as time goes by, will become more and more viable.”

Lighting contest winner Marilyn Sterley's home at 624 8th St. N.E., East Wenatchee

It’s been looking a lot like Christmas at Marilyn Sterley’s house in East Wenatchee for quite some time now — and she’s done it with energy-saving LEDs.

Sterley, the winner by popular vote of the 2011 Wenatchee World holiday lighting contest, said she began replacing her incandescent light strings with light-emitting diode strings as soon as the new technology was introduced. Now all the light strings are LEDs. “They’re brighter and better,” she noted. LEDs use a quarter of the energy used by traditional holiday lighting and last up to 10 times longer.

Sterley said the dominant color in her decorating scheme is blue. The blue incandescent bulbs she used to use faded quickly and had to be replaced after one season. The blue LEDs hold their color and never seem to fade, she said.

While all of Sterley’s strings are LEDs, she has several lighted figures that use incandescent bulbs. She’ll replace those with LEDs once manufacturers make the switch, she said.

Learn more about the benefits of LED holiday lighting here.