Energy Smart Schools

Atypical school district spends $400,000 each year on utility bills; some generate costs as high as $20 million per year. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that many districts could save 25 percent of that money through better building design, widely available energy technologies, renewable energy use and improvements to operations and maintenance.

Nationally, the estimated savings could pay for 40 million new textbooks, 30,000 new teachers or 1.5 million new computers every year. To help schools achieve these savings, DOE created the Energy- Smart Schools campaign as part of its Rebuild America program.

The EnergySmart Schools campaign is designed to motivate schools to use energy wisely and help them do it. Through Rebuild America, schools receive training workshops, publications, recognition and access to a broad network of private and public sector partners for help. On the local level, they can join or create community partnerships to benefit from even broader assistance—direct technical support and financing programs, among others.

Schools that adopt smart energy policies in their buildings, buses and classrooms not only save money but reap a host of other benefits:

• Classrooms are more conducive to learning, with better lighting, better temperature control and less outside noise.
• Buses emit fewer dangerous pollutants, particularly into areas where children learn and play.
• Schools spend less time— thus fewer resources— maintaining and operating buildings and buses.

Behind the scenes, the program works with legislators and policymakers to develop incentives for energy improvements. Also in the works are energy design guidelines to help schools be smart from the start, strategies to encourage businesses to provide more school products and services and efforts to eliminate policies and regulations that are barriers to school energy improvements.

Finally, the campaign creates and distributes teaching materials so that tomorrow’s decision makers build better buildings, use renewable energy technologies, design better buses and continue to be smart about energy.

Success Stories

Many schools are already engaged in energy smart strategies. Through DOE's Rebuild America program, a school in Tanana, Alaska, is saving $22,000 annually by cutting its energy use 30 percent. In Indio, Calif., the Desert Sands Unified School District is using energy savings performance contracts that guarantee savings of more than $300,000 each year for 10 years. In Washington, D.C., with help from the Department of Energy and the Army Corps of Engineers, the city schools will save an estimated $3 million annually over a 10-year period.

Sometimes the simplest steps can save a district a considerable amount of money. Ken Schow, assistant superintendent with the Idaho Falls, Idaho, schools, reports energy savings of $8,500 over the winter holidays alone. "The largest contributor to savings was temperature rollbacks manually done in all buildings," notes Schow. "Simply unplugging specific vending machines that have interior lighting and compressors is very cost effective."