Upgrades Improve Lighting, Power Bills for Family-Owned Business

Hartford, Wis. – Savings and efficiency are all in the family for Hahn Ace Hardware, with the family-owned business saving tens of thousands of dollars annually after collaborating on multiple energy efficiency projects with FOCUS ON ENERGY®.

Perry and Barbara bought an Ace Hardware store from its previous owner in 1999 and their son, Adam, joined the family business in 2013. The Hahns now have four Ace Hardware stores – in Delafield, Hartford, Mukwanago and a recently purchased Menomonee Falls location. The family has worked with Focus on Energy over the past five years to improve lighting in those stores.

“The Focus on Energy incentives helped our business upgrade to better lighting for our customers and our operational costs, and it makes the store look clean, modern and shows off our products better,” said Adam Hahn.

Darin Tappy, an Energy Advisor with Focus on Energy that worked with the Hahns on the projects, noted the business upgraded its indoor and outdoor fluorescent lights to LED lighting. As a result, the business has reduced its lighting costs by almost half.

To help offset the initial cost of these investments in energy efficiency, Focus on Energy provided more than $19,000.00 in financial incentives for the combined projects.

Energy savings from those upgrades, over the life of the new lights, is expected to be around 3,010,000 kilowatt hours of electricity. To put that in context, it is enough to meet the electricity needs of 360 homes for a full year.

“I'd like to comment on how pleased [we are] with the Focus in Energy Program. Not only did we save money on our energy costs, but the process was very straightforward,” Adam Hahn explained. “Darin was very helpful and responsive to our needs. Any questions I had were only a phone call away.”

Ratepayers of the 107 Wisconsin utilities that partner in Focus on Energy are eligible for the energy expertise and financial incentives the Program offers.

A third-party evaluation revealed Wisconsin runs the most cost-effective energy efficiency programs in the nation, in terms of energy savings per dollar spent. The same evaluation found every $1 invested in Focus on Energy generates $5 in benefits for Wisconsin, including economic benefits, reduced energy costs and reduced pollution.