A state official has welcomed a call for greater energy efficiency as part of the long-term response to excessive government spending. “I’m pleased that the Sierra Club Wisconsin Chapter has highlighted the tax savings we can achieve by reducing energy consumption in schools and other public buildings,” Rob Cramer of the state Department of Administration (DOA) said today. Cramer, who directs the state’s building program, emphasized that this would be nothing new for Wisconsin. “DOA’s Division of Facilities Development (DFD) continues to receive national recognition for an innovative energy conservation program that’s been in operation here for over a decade,” Cramer said. He noted that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) named Wisconsin its Year 2000 Energy Star Buildings Government Partner of the Year for its successful efforts to trim energy usage in state-owned facilities. Wisconsin is the first state in the nation to receive this honor. The Wisconsin Energy Initiative (WEI) began in 1992 by upgrading lighting fixtures in most of the 50 million square feet of state owned building space. In Partnership with Johnson Controls, Inc, DFD retrofitted and/or replaced aging electrical ballasts and lighting fixtures, resulting in over $5 million dollars of annual energy savings. Cramer added that the initiative has also yielded other benefits, such as reducing the emission of environmentally harmful gasses by over 196,000 tons. This success led to the creation of a second phase, WEI-2, to bring energy improvement techniques to local school and municipal facilities. WEI-2 included a second DOA division, the Division of Energy, which worked with the Cooperative Educational School Agencies (CESA’s) to leverage private funds to improve energy conservation in schools across the state. In 1998, DFD launched WEI-3 to focus on upgrading mechanical equipment, such as heating and ventilation systems, in the state owned facilities. Contracting again with Johnson Controls, Inc., and adding the Honeywell Corporation, the state entered into performance contracting agreements to produce energy and cost savings through 56 individual projects at 39 institution, campus's and facilities. Cramer estimated that when completed, WEI-3 will save enough energy to heat 10,000 Wisconsin homes and to trim state expenditures by $6.8 million annually. DFD has also upgraded its specifications for new building projects to include the latest “green” technology and energy saving ideas, such as daylighting , building automation systems and heat recovery systems. Co-generation is also a part of the WEI cost-saving strategy. For example, in 1994 DOA and the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater signed an agreement with the LS Power Corporation to purchase steam from a proposed gas-fired electric generation plant. UW-Whitewater and the taxpayers of Wisconsin will save over $7 million in energy costs through the first term of the contract, which expires in 2003. Gov. Scott McCallum stressed that WEI is part of a long-term state commitment to energy conservation. "The value of this initiative extends far beyond state government's own facilities. Because of the unprecedented scale of our energy conservation upgrades, the state has not only directly reduced costs and greenhouse gas emissions, it has helped transform the market for energy-efficient lighting products. Through Wisconsin's new Focus on Energy program, we will share our energy- and cost-saving insights with others and we will encourage homeowners, farmers and business owners across the state to follow our lead," McCallum concluded. “The Wisconsin Energy Initiative has the State of Wisconsin on target toward the goal of 15% reduction in overall energy use as established in 1992. WEI has been a very productive program for the State of Wisconsin and has allowed the state to establish itself as a leader in energy conservation among the fifty states,” Cramer said. He explained that in addition to the EPA award, Wisconsin has been honored by such groups as the Alliance to Save Energy, the Association for Energy Engineers and the US Energy Association. The National Governors Association has also included the Wisconsin Energy Initiative in it’s "Ideas That Work" publication. Cramer said that the cumulative effect of WEI and other energy conservation measures has been to reduce total energy consumption per square foot of state-owned building space by 14.2% since 1973. ”These demonstrated reductions show that the state’s energy conservation efforts benefit taxpayers and citizens through lower energy costs and reduced emissions.”