MONETTE, ARK. — Colson Caster Corp., a manufacturer of caster and wheel products, picked up a cash incentive check from a local utility for installing insulating blankets on its injection molding machines.
The company received a $28,021 incentive check from the Entergy Arkansas Inc.'s Commercial and Industrial Custom Program, according to a news release.
The energy efficiency program provides no-cost facility improvement recommendations and financial incentives based on the total amount of energy the improvements will save.
The insulating blankets will save more than 1,080,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, equal to preventing the annual carbon dioxide emissions from more than 159 cars, according to Environmental Protection Agency calculations. The energy savings from this project are expected to pay for themselves in less than two months, according to the release.
“In addition to the energy savings, the installation of the insulating blankets helped to create a safer work environment for our employees by reducing the surface temperature from 450° to 110°,” said plant engineer Jack Birdno. “This one project also yielded enough incentive monies to allow us to do future upgrades to lighting and our air compressor system, which will greatly reduce our energy footprint at a cost of only 25 percent of the total out of pocket.”