Seinergy delivers our largest single utility rebate to date – $1,200,000 into customer’s hands.
This week, Seinergy finalized our largest single rebate to-date totalling $1,200,000. The customer in this case is Florida-based indoor vertical farmer, Kalera.
As impacts from climate change make traditional farming more vulnerable, the use of indoor farming to grow vegetables is becoming more important and prevalent. Kalera has been investing in indoor cultivation technology and facilities for several years. To expand the availability of year-round, low-cost, dependable, locally sourced veggies, they are opening facilities across the United States close to population centers such as Atlanta, Houston, Denver, Seattle and more.
When Kalera was selecting lighting equipment for their indoor lettuce operation in Huston, Texas they got in touch with Seinergy for energy rebate management. Luckily, they had chosen to establish their sizable facility in CenterPoint Energy territory, with extensive support for energy efficient industrial upgrades.
Since last November, Seinergy has been managing all aspects of Kalera’s energy rebate. This required coordination with CenterPoint Energy engineers and energy efficiency staff, Kalera, and technical lighting designers. Matching the timing of a sizable incentive request with a new utility service account, a new efficiency measure, and reserving funds within the utility’s annual budget was a balancing act – but one that paid off. If the application was submitted any later, the rebate would have likely been much smaller or unavailable; the annual CenterPoint Energy budget was oversubscribed by early spring.
Kalera and CenterPoint’s investment in efficient LEDs, compared to standard fixtures, represents 5 MW of load reduction and 32 million kWh saved annually. The annual energy savings is equivalent to the energy production of adding solar to 9,900 homes. The savings are attributed to creating usable photons with fewer watts, as well the associated reduction in air conditioning.
The value of this transaction to other CenterPoint Energy ratepayers is significant and positive. CenterPoint Energy, like most future-planning utilities, invests in energy efficiency because it is more cost effective than building new infrastructure and supplying the power. Avoiding a 5 MW substation upgrade is a real benefit, and the levelized cost of this energy efficiency investment is about 4/10 cents per kWh saved, compared to standard wholesale power supply costs. In other words, CenterPoint is “buying” energy efficiency for 10% of the cost of buying wholesale power, which translates to lower costs for all ratepayers.
Stay tuned for more impact updates from Seinergy.
