Empire Electric and Tri-State help take energy hogs to slaughter

For the third time, Empire Electric Association has helped its member-owners safely replace and recycle old, energy-guzzling household refrigerators and freezers with new energy efficient models.  The electric cooperative's third annual “Don’t Plug it in...Turn it in” campaign brought in a record 248 outdated appliances and paid out a record amount in monetary incentives as well with the participation of its wholesale power supplier, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association.

The driving force of the recycling effort – which traditionally takes place during the week of Earth Day – is to educate Empire Electric’s member-owners about the proper disposal of “energy hogs” and to encourage replacing those units with highly-efficient Energy Star® replacements.  The consumers, in turn, not only start saving immediately on their electric bills, but they also are eligible to walk away with as much as $140 worth of incentives provided by the utilities.

Empire Electric pays each member $50 for turning in an old unit, plus the co-op pays the landfill cost per unit for properly evacuating the refrigerant.  Tri-State contributes $40 towards this effort. Plus, a member can receive an additional $40 in energy efficiency credits from Tri-State and $50 from Empire Electric when a new Energy Star® replacement is purchased.

“From what we’ve learned, most other utilities – if they provide an appliance recycling program at all – usually contract with an outside, off-site vendor to handle the ‘dirty work’ for them,” said Neal Stephens, Empire Electric’s general manager.  “As an electric co-op, we wanted to bring it closer to home, put into action our commitment to environmental stewardship and create a collaborative community effort all at the same time.  We’ve been fortunate to have had the support of some good partners in this effort.”

It is unique to Empire Electric that the entire recycling process takes place in the Four Corners region, including the safe disposal of the appliances by trained technicians at the Montezuma County (Colo.) and San Juan County (Utah) landfills, and the participation of Cortez-based Belt Salvage to convert the evacuated units into scrap metal bales and transport the materials to a recycling center in Albuquerque or Salt Lake City.

“The bottom line is that we’re taking inefficient, energy-guzzling appliances out of service and replacing them with significantly more efficient models,” said Doug Sparks, Empire’s Member Services Manager.  “On average, the older model appliances use anywhere from 200 to 600 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month, while the Energy Star® models use between 120 and 150 kilowatt-hours per month.  When it’s all said and done, the total monthly energy savings for all the appliances upgraded or removed through this year’s campaign equals approximately 36,500 kilowatt-hours – which is enough to provide energy to 50 homes for one month,” he explained.

Member-owners of Empire Electric that have purchased a new Energy Star refrigerator or freezer in the past 180 days may be eligible to receive significant rebates.  For more details, member services representatives can be reached at Empire Electric’s Cortez headquarters at 970-565-4444.

Empire Electric is a non-profit, member-owned electric cooperative providing power to residential, commercial and industrial customers in southwest Colorado and southeast Utah.  The co-op serves nearly 16,000 customers over 1,869 miles of energized line across a 3,410 square-mile service territory.

Based in the Denver suburb of Westminster, Tri-State is the wholesale power supplier to Empire Electric and 43 other electric cooperatives and public power districts in Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming and Nebraska.  The member distribution systems serve nearly 593,000 consumer-meters, which translates to a population of approximately 1.4 million end-use consumers.

Updated: May 27, 2009