GLENDALE, California – Glendale Water & Power (GWP) has won its fifth California Municipal Utilities Association Award (CMUA) for its public benefit programs. This year GWP won the coveted award for its Vending Miser program. The first utility in Southern California to utilize this technology, the Vending Miser reduces energy consumption, costs and greenhouse gas impacts of vending machines.
Each year utilities across California submit their public benefit programs to the CMUA for award consideration. Glendale Water & Power won for a small utility under the Energy Programs category. The Vending Miser has helped GWP by reducing energy costs for the City’s 150 vending machines that it operates. The utility also offers the Vending Miser program free to all business owners that own and operate their own vending machines. To date 350 vending machines in Glendale have installed the Vending Miser.
The Vending Miser program has a goal of delivering over 3.6 million kilowatt-hours of annual energy savings resulting in a reduction of over 2,400 tons of carbon dioxide emissions. It is estimated the Vending Miser will save customers over $670,000 in energy costs. This simple, yet powerful program procures and installs “EnergyMiser®” intelligent energy controllers manufactured by USA Technologies of Malvern, PA. EnergyMisers® use passive infrared sensors to power-down refrigerated vending machines, glass door coolers or snack machines when the area around the machine is not occupied. If there is no foot traffic in front of the machine for 15 minutes the machine is shut down. If someone walks by the machine, the sensor will sense the movement and send power back to the machine, keeping the product cold while significantly reducing energy use and costs. As a result, the technology produces an average energy savings of 46 percent.
“We are excited to win yet another CMUA Award for our public benefit programs. Programs like these not only help our customers save money, it helps the utility reduce costs and we help the environment by reducing carbon dioxide emissions,” stated Glenn Steiger, GWP’s General Manager. “It is a win-win situation for everyone.”
Since January 2000, GWP has spent $27.2 million in support of various energy saving programs to benefit its customers. These programs are saving an estimated 66,600 mWh each year, enough to power 9,000 homes for a year.
Public Benefit Charge (PBC) Programs started when Assembly Bill (AB) 1890 was signed into law in 1998 which requires publicly owned utilities to collect a separate surcharge to be used for “public benefits.” The expenditure of those funds is entirely at the discretion of locally elected governing bodies as long as the expenditures are for low-income, demand-side management, renewable energy, or energy-related research and demonstration projects. GWP currently has 23 PBC programs available to its customers.
Since 1998, an average $4.7 million a year has gone back to the community through PBC programs that offer low income bill discounts, energy saving rebates, energy and water saving surveys, installation of energy and water saving devices, and energy education materials.