Upgrades completed for Fort Eustis, Fort Story housing

The firm that manages housing at Fort Eustis and Fort Story completed a $12-plus million project installing energy efficiency improvements at more than 1,000 homes.

Balfour Beatty Communities and ENGIE Services installed 77,000 lighting and fixture upgrades, 995 smart thermostats, 475 high-efficiency heat pumps and upgraded weatherization on more than 900 homes.

In addition, they installed 4,500 faucet aerators in bathrooms and kitchens, 2,700 low-flow toilets, 1,800 shower heads and 1,500 bathroom humidistats — devices to control the amount of moisture in the air.

The improvements should cut electricity use by nearly 3.3 million kilowatt-hours a year, and water consumption by nearly 21.3 million gallons.

The project is financed with savings to the Army on its energy bill, through the federal government’s self-funding Energy Savings Performance Contract.

Those contracts slate some of the money a federal agency saves on energy bills as payments to a firm that installs energy saving equipment or systems. The energy services firm, in turn, can borrow the often-large lump sums needed for that equipment and those systems, paying the lender back over time with those performance contract payments.

For Army contracts, the mandatory savings required must exceed the payments to the energy firm, and the savings must be measured and verified regularly, the Army Corps of Engineers says.

The improvements also should help the Army reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the two bases by more than 2,000 metric tons, said Brad Boerger, ENGIE’s vice president of business development.

The energy and water cost savings, meanwhile, will also be used to fund further improvements at the homes, said Mark Lavin, executive vice president for Balfour Beatty Communities.

Dave Ress, 757-247-4535, dress@dailypress.com