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Rebuild Colorado teaches schools to save energy

Imagine a small town struggling to defend its little schoolhouse against heartless forces that would close it down. Then a circuit rider from the governor’s office arrives with a plan and teaches the schoolmarm some tricks that save the day.

What sounds like the plot of an old Western movie actually describes Rebuild Colorado’s outreach program to help rural Colorado school districts cut expenses by reducing energy consumption.

Rural schools benefit from established program
The Colorado Governor’s Office of Energy Management and Conservation launched Rebuild Colorado in 1997 with some funding assistance from the Department of Energy. The goal of the program is to help building owners identify energy-saving opportunities and help make those projects a reality.

To date, more than 200 state agencies, colleges and universities, cities, counties, schools, other local governments and non-profit organizations have benefited from the program’s services. “The Savings Roundup program for rural school districts is applying a proven concept to a new initiative,” said OEMC Senior Program Manager Linda Smith.

The reason for targeting rural school districts is that many of them really are the proverbial one-room schoolhouses. The heartless forces threatening closure are rising electrical and natural gas rates coupled with shrinking rural populations. The districts receive funding based on the number of students enrolled, and many of them have only 100 students, said Smith. “Any money they can save is going to make a difference.”

Circuit rider finds leaks and losses
Free technical assistance in the form of building audits and on-going support meetings show facility managers how to achieve those savings.

The Savings Roundup begins with the circuit rider performing a one-on-one mini-audit of the school. Peter D’Antonio, president of PCD Engineering Services plays the role of Rebuild Colorado’s circuit rider. “Basically, I’m acting as energy manager for 120 small districts that don’t have an energy manager,” he explained. “I’m bringing the resources to them.”

At the one-building, Wiley School District in southeastern Colorado, the audit revealed that an HVAC component had been installed incorrectly. “The system was turning on the air conditioner when it could have been drawing outside air to cool,” said Superintendent Mike Doyle.

To make matters worse, D’Antonio found that a third of the facility’s roof was not insulated. “Our heating and cooling was going right through the ceiling,” said Doyle.

Common-sense measures the most cost-effective
In addition to preventive maintenance of HVAC systems, D’Antonio pushes the low- and no-cost energy savings measures we grew up with. Lighting is the biggest savings opportunity, along with turning off computers and turning down the HVAC system when the building is empty. “Leaving 100 computers on over a three-day weekend can really drive up an electric bill,” he pointed out.

Dispelling energy myths and changing habits is part of the circuit rider’s job. The one about using more energy to switch lights off, then on again, and the belief that turning a computer off at the end of each school day hurts the system are particularly persistent, said D’Antonio. “Schools end up paying to keep lights and computers on in empty classrooms.”

Doyle confirms the circuit rider’s view. “We’ve always been told not to turn the lights off and on, and getting teachers to remember to turn them off now isn’t easy,” he said.

The Wiley School District has been taking small energy management steps for less than a year, but the superintendent estimates that it is already saving money. “Just turning off the gym lights alone is saving us money,” he added.

Meetings provide further training
To capitalize on the gains from the audit and implementation, facility managers and administrators attend networking meetings where they can compare notes and share success stories. OEMC also provides speakers on energy efficiency. “It has to be a district-wide effort to be successful,” said D’Antonio. “School districts need to understand that energy management is part of the day-to-day business management.”

So far, about 20 districts are participating in Savings Roundup and Tech 101, a training class Rebuild Colorado sponsors. At a recent meeting in Lamar, about half a dozen maintenance workers showed up. That may not sound like much, until you consider that there are only five or six districts in the area and each district has one facility manager.

Program adds value to utilities’ rural service
Representatives from Southeastern Colorado Power Association and Tri-State Generation and Transmission attended the meeting, too. Utilities act as local meeting hosts, and D’Antonio hopes that more power providers will get involved.

Tri-State Senior Engineer Mike McCoy agrees. “The services Rebuild Colorado offers are more extensive than most rural electric co-ops can provide,” he said. “Through the program, our members can connect their small but critical accounts with high-quality technical assistance.”

Facility managers are the de facto energy managers for school districts, McCoy added. “They need training to do that job and it adds value to a utility’s service to help them get it.”

Rural school districts may be small energy users, but any hero worth his white hat stands up for the little guy. Rebuild Colorado has done an outstanding job of coming to rescue, saving K-12 schools $2,850,000 in energy costs to date. The Governor’s Office of Energy Management and Conservation is committed to helping school districts finance energy improvements, so little schoolhouses on the Colorado prairie will be eagerly scanning the horizon for the Rebuild Colorado circuit riders.