Pinellas County staff outlines energy savings, says subscriptions and audits drive decisions

Robert Mills, director of the Office of Resiliency and Asset Management, briefed the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners on Feb. 20 on the county’s energy-conservation work and how staff evaluates new projects on cost-effectiveness and return on investment.

Mills told the panel that the county treats energy “as an asset” and relies on audits and data to decide when to repair or replace equipment. He said the county’s annual energy bill is about $20 million and described recent projects that lowered consumption and operating costs while staff continued to weigh up-front investment against long-term savings.

County staff highlighted several completed and ongoing efforts: a conversion of metered streetlights to LED that cut roughly 2,000,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) annually and produced about $128,000 in annual savings; an LED conversion at a detention facility said to save roughly 540,000 kWh per year; HVAC and chiller replacements that qualified for modest utility rebates; and participation in Duke Energy’s Clean Energy Connection subscription…