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UTILITY PROFILE: Tillamook PUD
Jul 14 2010
Like many utility districts, Tillamook PUD has tailored innovative incentive programs to serve the special needs of its customers located along the Oregon coast. Tillamook is home to the Tillamook Creamery Association, which makes its delicious Tillamook cheeses, ice creams, and yogurts with milk from the area’s approximately 200 dairy farms.
With so many agricultural customers consuming energy in its service territory, the PUD crafted an incentive program especially for them. “Dairy farms are a unique business,” said Dave Wimpy, the PUD’s energy services specialist. “Barns are often poorly lit, and use older, inefficient incandescent and metal halide lamps so we’ve been working hard to educate dairy farms about replacing these old fixtures. Farm owners who upgrade their fixtures are amazed by the improved lighting quality and better visibility into all corners of the barn, which comes in handy when breeding and delivering new calves.”
The PUD markets to the farmers through the creamery co-op. “The rebate pays off,” says Wimpy. “We’re seeing up to a 50 percent reduction in energy consumption at most of the farms who take advantage of the program.”
Visit Tillamook PUD’s website for more information on its Dairy Lighting Retrofit program.
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