Nolin Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation

Nolin Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation and Fort Knox in Kentucky have set a new gold standard for energy efficiency and cutting power consumption at federal facilities. In an effort to help Fort Knox realize significant energy use reductions, Nolin Rural Electric in Elizabethtown, KY, has developed the largest and most comprehensive energy efficiency program among electric cooperatives. Nolin Rural Electric and Fort Knox, later joined by Trane Co., have implemented 74 energy conservation projects to lower energy usage by 43 percent over 10 years. These efforts have improved the quality of life for base residents and workers and turned an unfunded problem into annual energy savings of over $9 million.

In 1992, a federal directive required all federal facilities to cut energy spending 35 percent by 2010. Fort Knox is the sixth-largest community in Kentucky, and a military facility since 1918 and home to a U.S. Treasury Bullion Depository since 1936. The base’s outdated infrastructure was straining to meet the power needs of the 23,000 employees and residents and more than 3,000 buildings. Cutting energy spending by over a third without additional funding seemed an impossible task, putting the base at risk for closure and the community at risk to lose thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in economic activity.

In 1996, Nolin Rural Electric stepped in to begin working with Fort Knox under the electric cooperative’s Utility Energy Service Contracts (USEC) program. Through the USEC, Nolin Rural Electric and its lenders created a line of credit for Fort Knox to purchase the necessary equipment and helped implement conservation and efficiency projects. The debt service would be retired with energy savings.

Because Nolin Rural Electric is a not-for-profit, member-owned cooperative, the goal of the projects was to help members manage energy consumption rather than to increase revenues.

Under the USEC program, a total of $83 million – the largest loan for energy conservation ever given by the Cooperative Finance Corporation – has been spent on projects costing between $6,500 and $29 million, including the following:

• Installation of the world’s largest geothermal system;
• Installation of infrared heat and solar-based projects;
• Replacement of lighting, windows, insulation, boilers, traffic signals, capacitor banks and peak-shaving generators.

When the Fort Knox efficiency initiative started, it was viewed only as a means of lowering energy usage. Today the program has expanded to include developing environmentally-safe, sustainable systems that improve quality of life for soldiers and government workers on the base.