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As we all know, the current economic climate is challenging. And schools and their districts are among those struggling. Funding is being cut as demands on schools are increasing. So of course, districts are looking to save money anywhere they can.

One potential starting place: cutting energy costs. And one potential model for doing so: Virginia's York County School Division.

Over the past 12 years, York County has developed a comprehensive, three-pronged strategy to managing energy. It includes not only high-reward (but high-cost) activities such as building, renovating and replacing using energy-efficient equipment, but focus on controlling systems and energy education.

Since the middle of 2004, this strategy has saved the district over two million dollars. It has had positive environmental impacts as well--the energy savings are equivalent to removing 2,115 cars from the road. The district has been recognized for the program by everyone from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the Association of School Business Officials International (ASBO International). And imitation is the sincerest form of flattery--the district knows of several schools built using the same technology as in York after visits to their schools.

We recently talked to Doug Meade, the district's Director of Information Technology, and Mark Tschirhart, Associate Director for Capital Plans and Projects, to learn more about the program.

The Background

Public School Insights: Tell me about your district.

Meade: We're a district of about 12,600 students. We have 19 academic facilities—four high schools, four middle schools, ten elementary schools and one charter high school. And we have two administrative locations.

Tschirhart: We have about 1.8 million square feet in total.

Meade: That is important, because for a district three times our size, the $2 million we have saved may not seem like a lot, but it's quite a bit for us.

Public School Insights: Why did the York County School Division decide to start a comprehensive energy management program?

Meade: One theme will run throughout this interview: When we take any particular tact toward energy conservation, it's because it saves money. That's the driving force behind our energy conservation efforts.

Tschirhart: Back in 1997, our former chief operations officer looked at our energy consumption. He wondered if there was a way we could cut those costs. So we put out an RFP, and we wound up with a new performance contract.

Meade: As part of that performance contract, we had a major relamping effort, putting more efficient lighting in seven buildings. At the same time, we implemented systems to control the HVAC systems in ten buildings, with some buildings potentially getting both.

And just as a piece of anecdotal information, we started our lighting retrofit in 1997. We finished about four years ago, only because we didn’t do that last school immediately because it was up for a major renovation. But our county got a nice piece of press last summer for going to more energy efficient lighting. We were headed down that path twelve years earlier.

Public School Insights: Doug [Meade], you're the Director of Information Technology, but you do a lot with the district’s energy conservation effort. How do those two things fit together?

Meade: That's an interesting question. Originally our energy conservation efforts—especially HVAC control systems—were part of maintenance and operations. But as that became more of a digitally controlled system running on our networks, it really needed the sophisticated thought you need in any major system administration, such as student management or time-tracking systems. So our former chief operations officer moved those responsible for it out of maintenance and into IT, and we treat it as one of our major business-critical systems.

It does link us closely with maintenance, because if people report they're hot or cold, the first thing you look at is, is it a controls issue? If not, it's a maintenance issue. But it comes to us first.

We don't know that anybody else anywhere has ever done it like this. We have never heard of another group doing energy management out of IT.

A Comprehensive Energy Management Program

Public School Insights: What are the major components of this energy management program?

Meade: The program is three-pronged. The first part—the tough, big bucks part—is building new buildings and renovating older buildings with energy conservation in mind. Whenever we build or renovate, unless circumstances are beyond our control, we put in geothermal heating and cooling systems, which save tons of energy. In Virginia, the average utility cost of a school building is something like $1.25 per square foot. But we have a school that on last measurement runs on about 67 cents a square foot. So geothermal systems are a huge part of this.

Lighting is also important. Of course we try to build or renovate a building with modern lighting. We look at delamping whenever possible. Classrooms are notoriously over-lit. Why pay for lighting that's just not providing any benefit?

And lighting is one of those things that you have to replace over time anyway. It is a typical maintenance cost. So we're replacing lighting as opportunities and money present themselves.

Also, we run classroom lighting. We got tired of saying, "Turn off the lights when you're not in the classroom." So we put in occupancy sensors. Lights come on when you walk in the room and automatically go off ten minutes after no motion is detected in that room. We’re in the process of integrating the HVAC system into those motion sensors.

We do other things to shore up our buildings, too. We upgraded the windows in older buildings to more energy-efficient models. We had a couple of buildings with shortcomings in ceiling insulation, so we addressed that. Those are very important things you have to do.

While you should always start with a good solid heating and cooling system, if you have the most energy-efficient system in the world but turn it on full-blast and run it 24/7, you're not going to lower your energy bills much. You have to control your systems, which we do, very tightly. We turn them on at the start of day and off when students walk out the door, though teachers have override buttons if they want the system on longer.

For each degree you raise your thermostat in the cooling season or lower it in the heating season, you save about 4 percent on energy costs. Of course, you must still maintain comfort and safety. Those are huge. But you’re never going to get 100 percent of people comfortable. 80 percent of the population is comfortable at 72 degrees, and we try to take advantage of that. Our summertime temperature is 73 degrees, which saves us 4 percent on our cooling costs. Our winter temperature is 67-70 degrees, for a considerable savings on heating costs.

The third part of our effort we call energy education. We have a person dedicated to going out to promote energy awareness and conservation. That person looks for ways to tighten up—outside lights on during the day, things running at night that could be shut down, that sort of thing.

Public School Insights: Is there any effort to get students and teachers involved in this work?

Meade: We automate as much as we can, so it's not a constant worry for them. But our energy conservation efforts are known to our teachers and students. At one school students got involved in energy audits of their building. And when things like that happen, they’re typically tied to our curriculum because, obviously, the goal is for our students to do well academically.

The Economic (and Environmental) Results

Public School Insights: What results have you seen since you started this program?

Meade: We are a little sad that our energy conservation efforts started in 1997, but we really didn't have a system to start measuring savings until 2004, when we contracted with a company called Energy Education, Incorporated. Since their program was implemented in summer of 2004, we've saved a little over $2 million in energy costs.

We're all about the dollar savings, but this program also lets us know that our energy savings are equal to removing 2,115 cars from the road or to planting over 300,000 trees. So while our focus is saving dollars, we are having a positive environmental impact.

Public School Insights: Has the program received any recognition?

Meade: It has. We’ve been recognized by the state House of Delegates for this work. We’ve also gotten a bit of recognition from the Environmental Protection Agency—the EPA. This past year they recognized 11 of our facilities as Energy Star buildings. And we’ve gotten their 10- and 20- point Reduction Awards, meaning we reduced energy consumption by first 10, then 20 percent.

Two years ago we won the Alliance to Save Energy’s Andromeda Award. That year we also won a Pinnacle of Excellence Award from ASBO International [Association of School Business Officials International]. Pinnacle Awards recognize outstanding practices and new ideas in school business management. And those are just a few highlights—it’s a long and illustrious list.

Beyond the District Doors

Public School Insights: Has this work helped other organizations become more energy aware?

Meade: We think so. One thing we enjoy doing, and have done quite a bit of, is hosting site visits on our geothermal systems. That is the aspect of our program that gets the most interest, because it is probably the exciting thing we do. We've hosted visits from the Smithsonian—their National Zoological Park sent people to look at our geothermal systems. We’ve hosted Loudoun County Public Schools in Northern Virginia. Haldane School District in Cold Springs, New York. Fairfax County Schools, another Northern Virginia school system. Washington County Public Schools. The Jamestown/Yorktown Foundation. We've had site visits from Virginia Beach, New Kent County, Poquoson and Manassas. And our local county government.

We know of four buildings built with geothermal technology after people saw what we were doing in York County. Renaissance Academy in Virginia Beach, New Kent High School in New Kent, Poquoson Elementary School in Poquoson and Manassas Park Elementary School in Manassas. All were the results of visits to York County.

Tschirhart: And we've done presentations at the Commonwealth of Virginia's Energy and Sustainability Conference, the Virginia Educational Facility Planners Conference and for the Virginia Sustainable Building Network. We did a webcast for the EPA on our geothermal systems. The Southeastern Chapter of the Association of Energy Engineers came for a presentation a couple of months ago. Just a lot of presentations for some fairly attuned groups.

Overcoming Challenges

Public School Insights: What challenges have you encountered with this program?

Meade: One is balancing cost versus comfort. Back to 80 percent of people comfortable at 72 degrees. That balance is always a challenge.

Getting buy-in. Sometimes schools are a little reluctant to help us when we cannot mechanically control space. There are places in a school that are difficult for us to get to. And for example we have a couple schools whose auditorium and stage areas have the lights on all day every day. We simply can't seem to impress upon them, "Turn 'em off. Why are we lighting this great big space all day for no reason?”

Initial cost versus savings, though that is an area where we’ve been lucky. We don't go down too many paths where it takes a lot of number crunching. Most of what we do is industry-proven as cost-effective—geothermal systems, T8 lighting. We don't need to prove it. But some organizations study energy savings ideas for years. By the time they finish the study, the technology has moved on and they've got to start a new study. When you use proven technology, take a line from Nike and "Just do it." You're going to save money. That's the bottom line.

Code requirements can be a challenge. Sometimes building codes aren’t written to make an energy-efficient building.

And of course, budget cuts. Sometimes you have to spend money to save money, and if there's no money to spend then it can slow down your savings efforts.

Tschirhart: I want to reiterate the challenge of changing people's mindset. When we were moving to more energy-efficient equipment, we had to get buy-in from the maintenance department. They were kind of leery, but now they love it. The geothermal stuff, especially.

Public School Insights: How did you change their mind?

Tschirhart: A lot of it was just getting them to talk to other people. And once we got that first system installed, everything clicked. They were amazed at how little maintenance it would require. Once they saw they had a whole lot less work on their hands, they were all on board.

Meade: That's also one of the selling points of geothermal systems. They have far fewer moving parts, far fewer things that can go wrong, than a traditional system. So it's less cost in parts, less cost in manpower to keep the system running. It all adds up in savings.

Replicating Success

Public School Insights: Are there any questions that I should have asked you, but did not?

Tschirhart: I know where school districts stand. Everybody is money-strapped. Anyone who comes up with a new idea has to prove it works before they can get money for it. That's one reason we go out and share our energy savings, so other school systems have some proof that yes, this works.

Also, to do this well, districts need an energy champion. Our former chief operations officer was ours. He had the vision, and he encouraged our school board to put money into the program. Each district needs someone like him. And it cannot be the maintenance director, it just won't work. But someone on school board staff, in administration, or even on the school board.

Meade: Also, we keep talking about our geothermal systems. You may not be able to put those in. But you can do other things. Plug leaks on buildings. Make sure insulation is in place. Make sure landscaping materials are pulled away from buildings so weep holes in the brick can let water out, reducing humidity buildup in the buildings. There are lots of things that you can do, but again, it takes some work to make all of it happen.

Sometimes maintenance can see this effort as, "Oh, no, more work for maintenance." And of course, they don't ever give maintenance more money when we save on electric bills. They just cut the budget the next year.

Tschirhart: Yes. And for us, while we keep our savings going towards the education of our kids, one thing our chief operations officer—our energy champion—did was ensure that as we saved money, some of it went back into more energy-saving measures. So it was a snowball effect. The more money we saved, the more money we had to put into energy-saving measures.