The City of Kentwood Department of Public Works was Awarded for the 2022 Battle of the Buildings Competition in the Warehouse Category

The City of Kentwood Department of Public Works (DPW) maintains the City’s parks and all underground pipes, keeps the streets clean and clear of snow, maintains all City buildings and grounds, and services City vehicles. They are also responsible for maintaining the City’s drinking water. The Department of Public Works seeks to keep City operations functional and City spaces beautiful. 

The DPW team has led energy reduction efforts across many City buildings. For the last three years, several City buildings have participated in Consumers Energy’s Building Tune-Up (BTU) Program, including the DPW building. The Consumers Energy BTU Program provides an energy audit and recommendations for potential energy-saving projects. Through this program, the DPW building reduced energy consumption through schedule adjustments, adding frequency drives to circulation pumps, utilizing occupancy sensors to control exhaust fans and zone temps, and installing replacement LED lights for the building and parking lot. These measures resulted in a 17.44% reduction in weather-normalized source energy use when compared to 2021 annual use. They worked with heating and cooling manufacturer Trane to implement this work which was completed in February 2022. The project cost was $9,618 with an incentive of $3,792. With estimated implementation cost, Consumers Energy calculated the payback for work verified in 2022 with incentives at 0.2 years. The parking lot lighting (via Kleyn Electric, Inc.) total project cost was $21,520 and they received $15,000 through a grant from the State of Michigan’s Environment, Great Lakes and Energy Department. The DPW team is always looking for ways to save taxpayers money and bolster community funds while also reducing the City’s environmental impact. Future plans include more interior lighting upgrades to LED and updating mechanical equipment.