News/Press

Littleton Independent

July 16, 2009

Saving Energy Every Day

Littleton - Q&A with Dave Riley

Dave Riley is the Energy Educator/Manager for Littleton Public Schools. For the past year, he has worked to conserve energy in the school system and save thousands of dollars in energy bills by partnering with Energy Education, Inc., a contracted energy management program. The program released a progress report in June.

Q: What is your position and how did it come about?
A: My official title is Energy Educator/Manager. A little over a year ago, the superintendent, Dr. Bemis, knew about a company called Energy Education, Inc. out of Texas. They’re energy specialists on conservation and uses of energy. We went into contract with them, and they trained me, and they send people up two or three times a month. They guarantee they can save Littleton a certain amount of money over 10 years with their energy program, if we follow their protocols.

Q: What is your background?
A: I had taught in Littleton for 35 years. I taught elementary math for quite a few years, and in 2000, I went back to school and got a degree from Lesley University in computer technology; integrating technology into the classroom. I wrote the computer program for grades 6, 7 and 8, and I did that for eight years until I retired. Dr. Bemis called me back last summer, and asked if I’d be interested in this position.

Q: Is it full-time or part-time?
A: Part-time. It’s supposed to be 15 to 20 hours a week; I’ve been averaging about 30 to make sure they program got started.

Q: What is your training like?
A: I’m required to go on three seminars a year. Energy Education puts on three seminars a year, and they’re training seminars. They talk about how air conditioning systems are supposed to work, how the heating systems work, and optimal settings to make things the most efficient.

Q: What are some of the changes you’ve made this year?
A: We really looked at how things were running in each of the schools, and some of the big things that we did to save was just looking at our heating systems. We lowered the occupied temperature of the schools 4 degrees from what they were.

Q: How did it work out?
A: On our school E-mail account, we set up a maintenance and energy help desk. So if a teacher came in and it was too hot in her room, or too cold in her room, there’s a leaky faucet someplace, if there’s a light that wouldn’t shut off that’s supposed to be off, they sign on, they go to the energy help desk, and they get a ticket number, it’s tracked, and someone looks at that. The custodians and I look at that every morning, and we zoom in on what the problem is. It saves a lot of time.

Q: How do your judge your success overall this year?
A: We’ve done really well. Based on the previous year and factoring in price increases, our expected costs were projected at $732,373, and our actual energy cost was $501,209. So we had a cost avoidance of $231,164, just the first year alone. We’re 31.56 percent more efficient this year. It’s pretty amazing.

Q: What other things have you implemented besides the heating system?A: I come in at all various times, and just make sure things are working the way they’re supposed to be, and not being turned on when they’re not supposed to be. At night, it’s a great time to come in – you come in at 12 p.m., and I just walk around and listen. If things are on that aren’t supposed to be on, I record that, and we can take care of it.

Q: Who’s responsible for making sure everything’s turned off?
A: It’s everybody. It’s a team effort; it’s Dr. Bemis, it’s Steve Mark, the business manager, Debbie Richards, up at the central office, the principals, the teachers; it’s everyone’s responsibility to take part.

Q: What are some of your goals for next year?
A: We found some significant problems with one of the heating systems at Shaker Lane, and we’re going to focus on that. And then I want to get the students a little bit more involved. There’s a program called Green Quest, and we’re going to put this on our district website, and it promotes energy savings. Anybody in town can enter in their energy bills, and it’ll track it and graph it for them, so they can see how they’re doing. We’re going to set up a project with the 6th-grade students that goes along with it.

The other goal is, we’re going to become an Energy Star partner. As soon as we can show a certain percent of savings with our schools, we can get to another level and become an Energy Star school.

Q: What do you like about this position? What appeals to you?
A: I’ve been in town now 37 years; I even student-taught here in 1971. I live in Lunenburg, but Littleton’s really my second home. I know everybody in town. Just learning something completely new, learning a lot of new things, and being able to help out Littleton, even though I’m not teaching every day. I can see myself doing this for a number of years.