Wellesley uses software to promote conservation

The Wellesley Municipal Light Plant is making use of technology developed by Gloucester-based GroundedPower to track energy consumption in Town Hall and two other buildings.

Six municipal utilities in Massachusetts, including Wellesley, are partnering with GroundedPower to help residential customers reduce their energy usage, but Wellesley has taken the program a step further by applying it to Town Hall, the town library, and the Wellesley Middle School.

Municipal Light Plant Director Dick Joyce said Wellesley has set a goal of reducing energy use in the town as a whole by 10 percent by 2013. In order to lead by example, Joyce said, the town is aiming to reduce usage in municipal and school buildings by 20 percent.

The equipment provided by GroundedPower enables visitors to Town Hall and the public library, and teachers and students at the middle school, to view real-time energy data. A bar graph tracks energy-consumption peaks and valleys in each building over periods ranging from one hour to one week. The amount of kilowatts that the building is drawing also is highlighted, as are projected totals over the week or month and to what extent these amounts will exceed or fall short of conservation goals.

By inviting visitors to view the data in municipal buildings, Joyce said, the town is seeking to build support for strategies to reduce costs. The public library, for example, is a popular destination on summer days because of its air conditioning, according to Joyce. The GroundedPower monitoring system, he said, can give residents a sense of how much money the town would save by, say, keeping the library three degrees less cool.

“If people can see the benefits, if they can see the results, we think that might give us the best chance for success,” Joyce said.

The five other municipal utilities that are helping residents monitor their energy consumption are in Braintree, Danvers, Hingham, North Attleboro and Wakefield.