Warwick’s success is the result of a top-to-bottom commitment, from the school committee and superintendent down to the custodial staff and teachers, to make energy efficiency and energy education a 24/7 endeavor. Making the necessary up-front investments in staffing, software and technical assistance have been important, too.
One of Cerio’s first projects was replacing more than 1,000 incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent lights that are four times more energy efficient. The new Energy Star bulbs have cut the school district’s electricity bills by $21,500 a year.
Cerio has also made tremendous use of energy management software that tracks and compares energy use in school buildings and provides cost-benefit analyses on options for reducing energy use. Cerio spends about 20 percent of his time entering and analyzing monthly bills for water, electricity and energy use in the district’s 29 buildings. The information has enabled him to find dozens of energy-savings projects.
The school district has also found ways to buy electricity more cheaply. Warwick is among a dozen school districts in Rhode Island that buys its electricity through a group organized by the RI Association of School Committees. The group pays 5.6 cents per kilowatt hour for its electricity, dramatically lower than the 6.8 cents per KWH standard offer that Narragansett Electric was charging last fall. The aggregate purchase saved the school district over $100,000 last year.
Additional savings have been found by purchasing heating oil on the futures market. In spring 2003, for example, the school district locked in a contract to pay 87 cents a gallon for all heating oil delivered in winter 2003-04. By avoiding spot market purchases, the school district saved $130,000 last winter.
The Warwick School Department has developed ‘green’ bid specifications to ensure that energy-efficiency measures are included in all new buildings constructed under the city’s new $28 million bond issue for new schools.
While many school districts in New England are using utility rebates and other programs to make energy-saving upgrades in existing building, there’s also a growing push to bring energy conservation and renewable power into new school buildings. Massachusetts and Maine are leading the way on the high-performance school front, offering design and construction grants for qualifying schools that meet specific energy-efficiency criteria.
The Green Schools Initiative in Massachusetts has provided $12 million in grants for 18 new schools. The grants include up to $130,000 per school for design work and up to $500,000 per school for construction, with 70 percent earmarked for renewable projects and 30 percent for energy efficiency work. Schools that have participated so far have, on average, been 30 percent more energy efficient than traditional buildings, resulting in annual net savings on energy bills of $60,000.
Maine’s High Performance School Program, launched last year, provides design grants of up to $20,000 and construction grants of up to $100,000 to encourage energy efficiency at new public schools. Eighteen schools are already in the pipeline for funding, including two that have already been built. In addition, Maine recently approved a new state rule requiring new school and state buildings in the state to be at least 20 percent more energy efficient in order to qualify for state construction assistance.
More information about EPA’s energy efficiency programs, including its Energy Star benchmarking tool for school buildings, is available at www.energystar.gov.
