Special to TGI The Garden Island salutes them. Kaua’i County energy coordinator Glenn Sato has received a national award for helping save more than $150,000 in taxpayers’ money that otherwise would have been spent by county government on energy. Sato
Special to TGI
The Garden Island salutes them. Kaua’i County energy coordinator Glenn Sato
has received a national award for helping save more than $150,000 in taxpayers’
money that otherwise would have been spent by county government on
energy.
Sato is one of three recent recipients in Hawai’i of the U.S.
Department of Energy’s Rebuild America commendations. The awards were presented
at the Hawaiian Electric Co.’s Efficient Electro-Technology Expo and Conference
in September in Waikiki.
Kathy Pierce, director of the Seattle regional
office of Department of Energy, said Sato is an energy conservation
“innovator.”
The department’s Rebuild America program, in which the county
cooperates through its Office of Economic Development, focuses on renovating
buildings and improving their energy efficiency.
Sato said the county’s
performance contracting program has produced $156,000 worth of savings in
energy and operational costs in the past two years. The savings sustain the
program, he said.
Through performance contracting, 29 county facilities
have been retrofitted with energy-saving equipment, including neighborhood
centers and police and fire stations. Currently, the Department of Water is
being checked for ways to save energy.
“The beauty” of the program, said
Sato, “is that we’re becoming more energy-efficient and environmentally
friendly, and it’s not costing our taxpayers a dime.”
