SCHOOLS: Districts becoming more energy-efficient

By Joe Olenick<br><a href="mailto:joe.olenick@lockportjournal.com">E-mail Joe</a>

When there’s no one there for a period of time, the lights go off automatically in some classrooms in the Newfane School District.

The rooms have motion sensors that cut the power to the lights when no motion is detected. The measure is just one of the ways the district tries to keep its utility costs under control. Al Evans, Newfane’s director of operations and facilities, said all of the district’s buildings, electronic records, phones and heating controls are linked through a computer network.

“It’s all connected through a shared fiber optic network,” Evans said.

The internal network allows Newfane to control the heating on a schedule. At night or during a time when it’s known fewer people will be in a given building, the heat in a block of rooms will be shut off automatically. And in the morning, the system allows the heat to come on a block of rooms at a time, which is cheaper than turning the heat on for the whole building right away. The schedule reduces the amount of electricity and heat being used by unoccupied rooms and reduces the spike in usage for the mornings.

“Turning everything on a block of rooms at a time minimizes the power surge,” Evans said. “It’s a savings.”

In the face of a gloomy state budget with possibly a lot less school aid, school districts are being extra careful with money they spend. That includes watching utility costs, such as electricity, heating and cooling.

One huge way districts weather the storm with costs is to buy utility service cooperatively. Local school districts purchase it together through Orleans/Niagara Board of Cooperative Educational Services, which allows districts to receive energy at a good price, said Scott Hoot, Barker business administrator. Buying cooperatively helps spilt up the cost.

“Through it we can buy more and pay less,” Evans said.

However, creating a school budget a year in advance makes it hard to plan on how much to spend for utilities and energy costs. Districts work on their budgets from the end of January until April, then residents vote on it in May before the school year starts in September. Schools look at what they used in past years and try to determine what they’ll use for the upcoming school year.

“We just have to make our best estimate,” Hoot said.

In the summer, Lockport High School will be undergoing a $23.5 million capital improvement project. Deborah Coder, Lockport’s assistant superintendent of finance, said the project architect, Young Wright Architectural, is meeting with Energy Enterprises as the architectural firm draws up the project plans. Energy Enterprises is a firm that specializes in energy consulting, finding ways to minimize cost and helping districts to buy gas and electric in bulk.

Coder said Energy Enterprises will be advising Young Wright on what the best energy-efficient items to use are, such as windows. The firm also helps districts prepare a budget by providing estimates that are pretty accurate, Coder said. Lockport also receives monthly energy usage reports for each of the district’s buildings.

Districts also keep an eye out for equipment maintenance, as well as putting in energy-efficient machines when possible. Barker Superintendent Roger Klatt said his district has been putting in energy-efficient units and boilers over the past several years.

“With our capital project, we included replacing the outdated equipment,” he said.

Coder said every school district in New York state has to complete a building condition survey every five years. Lockport and Newfane will have theirs done this year, while Lockport may be using a new way to complete the survey. Young Wright Architectural has a program, called Facility Inspection Technology, which does an on-site, in-depth look at every building, window, wall and floor in the district. It includes taking pictures and updating a computer file full of data by use of a portable, touch-screen computer. The survey also looks at energy efficiency.

Another possible way to keep costs down may be to use a geothermal heating and cooling system, like Newfane Elementary School does. Instead of burning fuel to create heat, a geothermal heating and cooling system takes heat from the ground, where the temperature deep in the bedrock is about 57 degrees. To cool the building down, it works in the opposite fashion, heat is pulled into the ground, making the building cooler. It’s an environmentally friendly technology that has some benefits.

“It creates real healthy air quality,” Evans said.

Cutting costs can also be as simple as reminding people to turn off lights or computers when they leave the room, Klatt said.

“That should be common practice,” he said.

Contact reporter Joe Olenick at 439-9222, ext. 6241.

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