Ambria Hammel/CATHOLIC SUN

Steve Zabilski, executive director of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in Phoenix, discusses with Grady Bailey, energy director for the Arizona Department of Commerce, the savings a new daylighting project will quickly garner for the organization. A Glendale-based company installed some 32 “daylighting” units throughout the food reclamation and thrift store reclamation warehouses last month.

Daylighting project allows
St. Vincent de Paul to slash energy bill

The outlook for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul’s main campus and its clients are a little brighter these days, literally.

A state-funded “daylighting” project underway last month at 401 W. Watkins Road will do more than save on energy costs. It will redirect those funds to a host of crucial client services that keep struggling families and individuals fed, clothed and sheltered.

St. Vincent de Paul is among 14 Arizona non-profit organizations collectively receiving some $637,000 from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for renewable energy projects. It is dispersed through the Arizona Department of Commerce’s State Energy Program.

St. Vincent de Paul was granted $48,533, nearly the maximum allowed for a renewable energy project. Glendale-based Natural Lighting Company is installing 32 units throughout St. Vincent de Paul’s food reclamation and thrift store processing warehouses. Both are open more than 40 hours a week during the day.

The four-foot-by-four-foot units are designed to harvest light and diffuse it down so that the 36,000 square-foot warehouse space remains equally lit throughout the day. They also include thermal breaks making the daylighting cooler than electrical lighting.

 “As you know, we take efficiency very seriously here,” said Steve Zabilski, executive director of St. Vincent de Paul. What the nonprofit can’t use gets sold to a recycler bringing in much-needed funds.
Zabilski said the daylighting project would save more than $1,000 each month in energy costs. That translates to more money for food and more money to support services like the medical and dental clinic, he said.

Bruce Bilbrey, vice president of Natural Lighting Company, said daylighting projects are the simplest form of solar energy that can be put into place. He estimated St. Vincent de Paul saving 6,000 watts of lighting in the tiniest stretch of the food reclamation area.
“This project is among the most gratifying that we’ve done,” Bilbrey said.

The company has also completed projects in Valley Whole Foods stores, schools, gymnasiums and municipal buildings as well as Luke Air Force Base.

Work on the daylighting project should be finished by July 23. It should reduce electricity use by 99,000 kilowatt hours and offset 128,000 pounds in carbon dioxide emissions.

Bilbrey noticed St. Vincent de Paul’s outdated electrical lighting in the warehouses that has a yellow tint to it. He hopes to work with St. Vincent de Paul to retrofit its outdated electrical lighting as well, so that when the light switch is needed, it’s more cost efficient.