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School’s efficiency helps pay for wind energy

Rocky Mountain High School earned high marks for environmental citizenship last Earth Day by taking its reward for reducing energy consumption and investing it in enough wind energy to power the school for the month of April.

School reflects district’s commitment
The reward money came from the Energy Rules program, created by Poudre School District and the city of Fort Collins Utilities to encourage energy conservation in its schools. Under the program, Poudre District high schools can earn $500 for participation, and a $3,000 performance award for conservation measures.

“The schools can spend the rebate any way they want,” said Sharon Held, key accounts manager with the municipal utility. “We were really impressed that they wanted to put it into alternative energy.”

“This is the epitome of environmental stewardship and leadership by our students and staff,” said PSD Energy Manager Stu Reeve.  “Their commitment reflects our district’s philosophy to provide leadership, conservation and support to our community through public education and awareness.”

Poudre School District has been named Energy Star Partner of the Year twice, and has 17 buildings that qualify for the Energy Star label for wise energy use.

Rocky Mountain received the districtwide award of $3,000 for energy conservation in both spring 2003 and spring 2004.  Initially, the money was earmarked for a recycling center at the school as part of a new addition. Luckily, the center fell within the construction budget, said David Swartz, a science teacher and sponsor of the school’s Environmental Club. “It allowed us to redirect the money to other projects.”

Utility supports school’s energy choice
The Environmental Club had just such a project in mind—buying enough wind power to meet the school’s energy needs for one month. The school administration agreed to put $1,000 toward the purchase and PSD came up with a matching grant.

Matching the students’ wind power purchase is a good investment for the school district, said Reeve, noting that the Rocky club’s recycling and conservation programs saved approximately $30,000 from 1999 to 2004. “These things have a pretty good sized impact to our school district in the form of costs,” he said.

With $2,000 to buy 200,000 kWh, the Environmental Club faced two challenges. First, Fort Collins usually sells wind power blocks in one-year contracts rather than on a monthly basis. “We could have spread the purchase out over one year, but some students might not even be there in a year,” observed Held.

She recalled Fort Collins’ previous conservation program for schools, Energy Teams. “We didn’t have the electronic tracking systems we use now, so it took two to three months to figure out how much energy the schools were saving,” Held said. “The rewards took too long and that felt like a negative.”

Immediate gratification would make the purchase more meaningful to the students, she added, so Fort Collins Utilities agreed to a one-month “contract” for the green power block.

Conservation aligns use with power block
The second problem with the wind power purchase was that 200,000 kWh was just short of meeting the school’s actual monthly use. Some of the district’s newer schools run entirely on wind power, but Rocky Mountain’s mid-70s facility requires more energy to heat, cool and light.

Not about to settle for close enough, the Environmental Club launched a push to reduce the school’s energy use by 5 percent. Reeve offered suggestions for saving energy in the older building. “We primarily focused on lighting,” said the energy manager. “That time of year for example, gym classes are moving outside, so the gym lights don’t need to be on. We were also tightening up the HVAC schedule as the weather warmed up.”

Reeve and utility representatives also did walk-through classroom audits with the Environmental Club members. Surveying equipment and lighting in each classroom, along with the traffic and occupancy, “really raised awareness that it was up to individual teachers and students to take steps to save energy,” said Schwartz.

Signs posted by light switches and announcements in the daily bulletin reminded everyone that saving energy was a school-wide effort. “Our information systems department graciously agreed to let us turn off the computers all but one night a week,” said Swartz.

On that night, the department updated thesystem’s virus protection. In the past, turning off computers allowed serious viruses to enter Rocky Mountain’s system. “As far as we know, there haven’t been any virus problems this time.”

Project shows actions have effect
Simple measures and school pride proved to be effective conservation tools. Rocky Mountain reduced its energy use by 9 percent, well within the 200,000-kWh allotment. “The wind power block actually took them a few days into May,” said Reeve.

The students were enthusiastic about the accomplishment and the teachers were even more excited. “There was not a discouraging word from the faculty, and there is some interest in doing it again,” said Swartz.

If Rocky Mountain repeats the wind purchase, Swartz would like to add an attitude survey to see if it raises awareness among students and changes their habits. “You know how teenagers are—some will be very passionate about a cause and others won’t be,” he said. “The challenge in getting kids to embrace the measures is to show them that their actions have an effect.”

And the students are having an effect, Reeve noted. Although the district actually pays a higher premium for wind energy, the awareness the program raises ultimately saves energy costs freeing more money to put toward education. “By these students working together inside their school, they’re actually impacting the entire school district,” said Reeve.