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Energy-saving program results in over $182,000 saved
By Belia Ortega Sheboygan Press staff December 1, 2006
Little things such as turning off lights and shutting down computers is making a big dent in the Sheboygan Area School District's energy bills.
A district-wide energy-saving program resulted in a net savings of $182,250 in electric and gas costs from February to October, said Roger Leys, Sheboygan's assistant superintendent of business and development services.
To get the energy program started, the district signed at four-year contract with Energy Education Incorporated, a Wichita Falls, Texas based consulting company, at $144,000 a year. The contract guarantees the district will save as much or more in energy costs than the yearly cost of the program, and Leys says the district's biggest savings are yet to come.
"I strongly believe that we're going to save well over a million dollars by the end of the contract," Leys said.
"If we wouldn't be taking these initiatives we'd be spending a million dollars on energy instead of spending money within the classroom," Leys said.
The district, through the consultants, started using an energy-monitoring program called Energy Cap, and also hired Gene Gasper, an energy educator/manager, at an additional salary of $57,000 a year.
The consultants analyzed the district's energy spending for February 2005 through January 2006, taking into account usage, rate structures for natural gas and electricity, and weather conditions.
The figures were then used to forecast what the district's spending for utilities would have been for the February-October period if the district had not taken any energy-savings measures, Leys said.
From February to October, Sheboygan schools spent $1.37 million on utilities under the energy-saving program. Without the program, Leys said the district would have spent $1.7 million on utilities, according to projected estimates for energy spending between February and October.
The district saved $333,000 during the period, and after deducting Energy Education's costs along with Gasper's salary for the nine-month period, Leys said the net savings totaled $182,250.
Much of the savings was a result of turning lights off when not in use, controlling room temperatures and keeping doors to rooms closed, said Gasper, who monitors and visits all of the building at all times of the day, seven days a week.
"A lot of it is just changing habit," Gasper said. "I'm looking for lights out in unoccupied rooms. Temperatures at 68 to 70 in the rooms."
Gasper said Energy Management provided training for him along with additional assistance through seminars, training on how to use a computerized tracking system. The company also sends experts to the area to look at specific problems in the school buildings, he said.
The new Acuity field houses at North and South high schools will increase district energy costs by about 15 percent, but administrators have been working on streamlining the scheduling of events and activities by using fewer buildings, said Wayne Kolzow, district coordinator of facility services.
"I think the first year is really doing the easy stuff," Kolzow said. "The next couple of years is where we really get involved."
Leys said it's in the Sheboygan district's best interest to continue using the energy consultants, rather than trying to do the energy-saving program on its own.
"The districts that had this program for four years and thought they could do it themselves, failed and came back," Leys said.
Reach Belia Ortega at bortega@sheboygan-press.com and 453-5169.