Bibb BOE Reaps Benefits of Cost-Saving Lights

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Saving energy and saving money–there’s not much better than that.

So when members of the Bibb County Board of Education found a way to do just that, they didn’t pass it up.

Sometimes, a bright idea just clicks on.

“It was a win-win for the district,” said Bibb County Schools Energy Manager Chris Bryson.

The Bibb County School District recently installed LED lights in nearly every light fixture across the system.

“These lights are a lot more energy efficient than the previous lights that we had. We had the standard T-8 fluorescent lights that are common throughout most businesses and schools,” said Bryson.

And how bout this for some energy savings: During the period of May 2013 until September 2013, the savings were more than 175,000 dollars in energy usage.

Bibb County Schools Energy Manager Chris Bryson says the LED technology makes all the difference.

“They don’t generate a lot of heat is the primary reason. Most incandescent lights and to some degree fluorescent lights generate a good bit of heat that’s wasted energy during the process of producing the light.”

The district contracted a company called WiPro to oversee the entire process back in November of 2012.

And Bryson says the installation on these lights was pretty simple as well.

All they had to do was put the new lights into the old fixtures they already had, because they’re the same shape and size.

Plus, Georgia Power is tossing the district even more savings.

“Georgia Power offers rebates to customers to do energy efficiency upgrades,” said Bryson. “As a part of this project, we applied for those rebates, we received over 260, 000 dollars in rebates back to the district.”

And money back to the taxpayers is always a bright idea.

Bryson also said WiPro guaranteed the lights for 10 years, a lot longer than the old lights.

They’ve had to replace only about 100 of the 81,000 they’ve installed so far.

They also replaced the lights in the gymnasiums with more efficient lights, so there’s savings all around.