The Alliance to Save Energy’s 2012 winners for Energy Efficiency are:
Top Award: Kroger Co.
With over 2400 supermarkets in 31 states, Kroger is the nation’s largest chain with well known names such as Fred Meyer and Dillons. It also operates almost 800 convenience stores, 350 fine jewelry stores, and 39 food processing plants.
Forbes recognized Kroger as the most generous company in America for its food contributions – 125 million meals a year through more than 80 Feeding America food bank partners.
Headquartered in Cincinnati, Kroger has installed over 400,000 LED lighting sticks in glass door freezers in 2009-2010, and since 2011, replaced old lights in walk-in coolers and freezers, and on meat shelves with LEDs in 1100 stores. All stores will do the same by the end of this year.
"In addition to reducing lighting and refrigeration load, the LED’s lower our maintenance expense, and enhance product quality – and our Customers LOVE the sparkle!," they say.
The electricity saved would run 20 Kroger stores. Since 2000, Kroger has cut electricity consumption 31% across all stores by using energy efficiency equipment, improving store and fixture design, undertaking e-commissioning and improved maintenance practices, and educating Store Associates about energy savings.
For example, last year Kroger collaborated with a vendor, Heat Seal, to redesign the "wrapper-sealer" machine that wraps products like fresh meat in plastic. The newly designed machine uses 75%-80% less electricity, saving Kroger $1.5 million.
Kroger has also been lauded for setting a goal to sell only sustainably-sourced seafood by 2015.
Andromeda: Corporation for Ohio Appalachian Development (COAD)
COAD is a nonprofit that serves 30 rural, mostly Appalachian, counties in eastern and southern Ohio. It provides community development programs and leadership development, early childcare and education, scholarship assistance and senior programs.
It won the award for weatherizing every home in the economically distressed village of Murray City, Ohio, where 472 people live.
Under the pilot program, it updated homes at no cost, funded by the Recovery Act and other sources. They used a "block by block" approach to streamline the upgrades, saving money, and serving as a community model.
Here’s a video:
I-Star: Eletrobras
Brazil’s largest utility Eletrobras has operated the federal government’s National Electricity Conservation Program (Procel) since 1985.
The program works to raise efficiency in buildings, appliances and industry. One project is modernizing public lighting and traffic signals. Eletrobras has financed replacement of more than 2.3 million public lighting points since 2000.
In 2010, they launched a program that labels 31 categories of equipment and appliances, the Procel Seal label (similar to the US Energy Star).
And the Procel Edifica initiative labels the energy efficiency of residential buildings. In 2010, the first year, the National Energy Conservation Label was granted to 54 residential buildings and 18 in commercial, public and service related buildings.
Over 1300 professionals and technicians are trained and certified to perform building energy efficiency audits and inspections, and 12 university labs have been selected to accelerate the accreditation of building inspection bodies.
In 2010 alone, the programs cut 1.47% of Brazil’s electricity consumption, avoiding a new 1500 MW power plant, for an investment of $43 million.
DirectTV
As a partner in Energy Star’s Set?Top Box program (cable boxes), DirectTVit has received awards from the US EPA for the past three years for Excellence in Energy Efficient Product Design.
99.9% of the more than 33 million DIRECTV set?top boxes deployed in 2009?2011 comply with Version 2.0 or 3.0 Energy Star guidelines.
In 2011, those energy savings amounted to 900 million kilowatt-hours – the electricity used by over 70,000 homes – by reducing the energy consumed 40% for standard boxes, 60% in high definition boxes and 30% in high definitiion digital video recorders.
They also moved to an option where each household needs just one box, eliminating the need for millions of receivers.
Last November, Cable TV operators that provide service to 85% of US customers pledged to make 90% of all new cable boxes Energy Star 3.0 by the end of 2013. Cable boxes use more electricity than an efficient refrigerator and use more energy when they’re turned off.
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Here’s the Alliance to Save Energy website:
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