LIPA offering lighting lift to LI businesses

After a bit of a challenging start involving issues with National Grid, the Long Island Power Authority is expanding an energy-savings program that it says could save some small and medium-sized companies in the region hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars a year.

LIPA's Small Business Direct Install program is aimed at reducing lighting costs at businesses in "high-load" areas, according to chief operating officer Michael Hervey. Under the program, customers receive a free lighting survey and a report detailing recommended energy-saving upgrades. If the business agrees with the upgrade, LIPA will pay up to 70 percent of the cost to make the changes.

Hervey called the program unique and said it would help promote economic development on the Island by allowing companies to save money, expand their services and possibly hire more people.

So far, LIPA has identified some 26,000 businesses eligible for the program, for which the utility has budgeted $12 million, said spokesman Mark Gross. To date, he said, about 500 businesses have signed up.

The program started in December in the Town of East Hampton under a so-called South Fork Efficiency Initiative. LIPA has selected National Grid and Huntersville, N.C.-based Lime Energy, which has offices in Farmingdale, as partners in the program. Gross said the program is expanding to other areas of the Island where usage is high.

But things got off to an uneven start. A video recording of a March 1 LIPA board meeting shows that Hervey and others had concerns that National Grid was not out selling the program as aggressively as LIPA thought it should. Hervey mentions National Grid when he talks about the program's service providers who are "lagging behind." National Grid, Hervey says, needs to "re-focus" its efforts.

In a statement, National Grid last week said it has "consistently met the targets established for LIPA's energy-efficient initiatives in both the residential and business markets over the last 12 years."

Whatever the case, the program has been applauded by Gordian Raacke, executive director of Renewable Energy Long Island. "It's not just good for business owners, but for the economy as well," Raacke said.