Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
An energy audit is in for Palouse, and the town will now decide whether to make recommended changes.
Apollo Systems of Spokane contacted city hall in November to offer a free evaluation of Palouse’s energy systems.
After two snow delays, company representatives came to town in December and submitted a report.
In it they noted a few lights that had not been converted to LED in a recent project and a deficient well pump at the city shop.
“Relatively speaking, these are minor,” said City Clerk/Treasurer Mike Bagott. “We kind of expected that might be the case.”
The well pump is a 1974 model next to the downtown public works shop, which has a deficiency in its ability to modulate power as needed. Instead of just being on or off, newer models can operate in multiple settings – as is the case for the Palouse’s other, newer pump.
Apollo representatives were set to appear at a Palouse city finance committee meeting Tuesday night.
Another element which may enter the discussions about the well is previous interest in putting a solar energy generation system on the southwest end of town to power Palouse’s second well.
“That project would be substantially more expensive than the other two combined,” said Bagott.
Avista rebates and grant funding would be available for such a project.
After the finance committee meeting Tuesday, the committee will aim to bring a recommendation to the Palouse city council Jan. 26.
“We’re still reviewing it, we’ll see where it takes us,” said Palouse mayor Michael Echanove.
Apollo Systems originally cold-called Palouse to ask about taking a look at the town’s systems to check for inefficiencies.
After the city council approved the pitch Dec. 8, Bagott scheduled a morning for Apollo engineers to arrive for a day’s work.
Snow fell, however, and Public Works Director Duane Griffin was needed on the snow plow.
In turn, the visit was postponed, then a week later due to snow again. Griffin needed to be available to show around the Apollo representatives.
The non-LED lights noted by the audit were not streetlights, thus were not part of the previous city-wide streetlight project.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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