With budget cuts trickling down from the state year after year, the Lake Washington School District (LWSD) has been participating in an energy program that has saved them millions of dollars.
Five years ago, the district began a Resource Conservation Manager (RCM) program that focuses on energy conservation and efficiency. Since then, savings have totaled to $4.57 million with a predicted $1.52 million in savings for this fiscal year, which began Sept. 1, 2010 and will end Aug. 31.
“We’ve turned a $7 million utility budget into a $5.5 million budget,” said Chuck Collins.
Collins is the chief executive officer of Cascade Power Group (CPG), the company LWSD hired as an energy consultant. CPG works mostly with school districts and public agencies such as city governments.
Upon beginning the RCM program, LWSD director of support services Forrest Miller had his doubts about how much they would save. He said LWSD had tried an RCM program about 10 years earlier, but it wasn’t very successful because the situation and circumstances were not right at the time. As a result, Miller wasn’t too sure about how well the current program would work when the district began it five years ago.
“I was skeptical,” Miller admitted.
He said the first program focused on behaviors — such as turning off lights when they’re not in use and not letting water run when it’s not necessary — which was not enough for them to see significant savings.
With the current RCM program, Collins has educated LWSD staff and students and helped them understand that resource conservation is more than turning off lights.
ABCs of RCM
Behaviors is just one prong of CPG’s three-pronged approach to reducing energy consumption. Collins calls it the ABCs of RCM: accounting, behavioral and capital or construction projects.
In accounting, Collins looks at an organization’s bills for errors as well as visits schools to find opportunities to reduce the frequency of certain utility services. For example, if trash services come once a week but the bins are only halfway full, the organization would cut down trash services to once every two weeks. Collins said right there, one expense has been reduced by about half.
Miller added that in looking at water bills, a few situations have come up in which there was a spike in the water rates. He said the district has occasionally found water pipe leaks and were able to fix the leak or figure out that it wasn’t on district property and received money back from the water utility.
The behavioral aspect of CPG’s approach is about getting people to do different things, Collins said.
A lot of this includes turning of lights when they’re not needed, closing doors to keep warm or cool air in a room and setting computers to an energy-saving mode when they’re not in use. Miller said the latter saved the district $250,000 the first year of the RCM program.
STUDENT INVOLVEMENT
Behaviors is also the portion of the program in which students get involved as many schools throughout the district have formed green or environmental teams and clubs. Schools have begun recycling and composting programs with students overseeing the sorting. Miller said students have been very helpful in monitoring adult behavior as well.
“(The students) enjoy a great deal to help out,” he said.
Collins added, “It’s critical (they get involved) because they are going to be our leaders of tomorrow.”
Jed Reynolds, a resource conservation manager with CPG, has done a lot of work with the students throughout the district. He said getting them involved in the program is a key part of the job. Reynolds added that incorporating the educational component is a lot of work but it’s “absolutely worth it.”
Reynolds was hired by LWSD in 2008 after the district had saved enough money to bring on a second CPG employee. And even with Reynolds added to the payroll — bringing CPG’s original contract with LWSD from $80,000 to $180,000 — that cost is offset by how much the district saves.
Reynolds came to LWSD with a background in water and since then has been able to look into the district’s water usage and figure out ways to reduce consumption and save even more money.
The third prong of the RCM program is capital or construction projects.
This means upgrading or retrofitting equipment such as heating units, appliances and light bulbs so they are more energy efficient. Additionally, with LWSD’s modernization program, the district has been able work on this aspect of the program from the get go when renovating old buildings or building new ones.
ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES
One feature that has been added throughout the district on buildings new and old is solar power. Collins said currently, six buildings use solar panels as a source of electricity: Redmond, Eastlake and Lake Washington high schools, Evergreen and Finn Hill junior high schools (the latter of which has solar panels on all classroom wings) and the district’s Support Services building in Redmond.
Miller said as the district continues with its modernization program, it would like to add solar panels to all new buildings when they can afford it. One of the benefits of solar, he said, is that when the panels collect energy during the summer months when the buildings are not in use, that power goes back into the electrical grid. When this happens the utility, Puget Sound Energy, buys the electricity from LWSD, meaning the district actually gets money back.
Miller added that the district is also using geothermal heating systems when possible. This is when wells are drilled into the ground and buildings draw energy from the earth for heat or electricity because the temperature underground beyond three feet remains pretty constant.
SAVING FOR EDUCATION
Collins said with the $4.57 million LWSD has saved in the past five years, the district has been able to put that money toward education and avoid layoffs, cutting services and other major reductions that other districts have had to make as a result of budget cuts.
“It’s a lot of money,” he said.
Miller agreed, saying that the RCM program has been very important because not only is it the right thing to do, it has help put money back into the classroom. He added that without the money saved from the program, LWSD would be greatly affected by the ongoing budget cuts.
“That would hurt us a great deal,” he said.
Collins said each organization’s savings varies depending on its size. The bigger the school district, the bigger the savings. In terms of percentage, the $1.52 million reduction equals about 21.7 percent in savings for LWSD’s $7 million utility budget for 2010-11.
TIPS FOR SAVING ENERGY AT HOME
Saving energy isn’t limited to school districts, businesses and other organizations. Here are some tips to save energy at home:
• Turn off and unplug lights and electronics whenever possible and be appliance aware. Even the small indicator lights on a TV or computer monitor take electricity.
• Keep the blinds down when you leave the house. This will keep heat in during the colder months and keep rooms cool during warmer months.
• Make sure your windows and doors are sealed well to prevent air from entering or escaping.
• Use water wisely.
• Recycle and reuse items whenever possible.
