Energy-efficient renovations are expected to save district 20 percent
With students off and about for the summer, Williams Bay School District officials took the opportunity to make some big changes at the high school – renovations that are expected to open up funds for other district projects and offer a new learning opportunity for students.
According to District Administrator Wayne Anderson, energy-efficient changes made to the school over the break are expected to save the district as much as 20 to 30 percent on operating costs in the upcoming school year. The project was expected to cost around $3.4 million, but Anderson said the district is currently about $400,000 under budget.
He said major changes included a new heating, ventilating and air conditioning system, fans that will better circulate air throughout the school, new interior and exterior lighting, new toilets to better conserve water and motion sensors for various electronics throughout the school.
Anderson said with the new lighting, exterior lights will remain on throughout the night. However, the energy-efficient interior lighting is rigged to a motion sensor system, ensuring that if no one is around, the lights will automatically shut off and as soon as someone enters a room, the lights will turn back on.
“As soon as something hits, the lights follow you,” he said. “The lights are only on when the people are there.”
Additionally, Anderson said, motion sensors on the tops of vending machines ensure the machines are only running when someone is standing in front of them, otherwise they turn off.
“I mean, they didn’t cost very much, but it saves some energy,” he said.
In looking to save future money on heating, Anderson said the district put in new boilers this year, replacing ones from the early 20th century and saving space in the process.
“The 1916 boilers were huge,” he said. “These do a much better job to heat more, they’re smaller and they’re more energy efficient.”
The new heating and cooling system, according to Anderson, will help the district to keep a more level temperature throughout the year. He said the whole system is web-based, allowing technicians to analyze from off site any problems that might arise.
“So, if there’s a problem, Rick or Tyler, our two maintenance employees, at home, they can just get on and see exactly what each one of our units are doing, if there’s a problem, and many times, they can just make a couple tweaks on the computer to open or close something,” he said.
“You don’t have to run back in, you can go right online and make changes.”
Anderson said the new technology shows the unit, the moving pieces and color codes indicating whether things are running smoothly or if there is a problem at a specific point in the system.
Additionally, Anderson said, the new system was designed so that if the district’s referendum passes this fall, it’s already set up for an additional boiler, reducing the added cost to heat another portion of the school.
Anderson said the units have smoke detectors within them so that in the event something were to go wrong in one of the units, it will shut down a section of the unit to prevent smoke from circulating throughout the system and the school.
For those who have sat through graduation in a warm gymnasium before, Anderson said new fans in the gym (and the cafeteria) will help to move air.
As a part of the project, Anderson said the school district also bundled the addition of a new roof, which allowed them to do some extra patchwork on the school’s outer shell.
Anderson said the project was expected to be completed last week, though he said they’ll continue cleanup after that point.
“By and large, we should be pretty much ready, where it will be nip and tuck, and then we should start saving energy,” he said.
Paying for the project
Anderson said the project was funded as the state allows school districts to take on energy-efficient projects like this through a loan-type situation in which the money is paid back through the savings that otherwise would have been spent on operating costs.
He said as part of the process, the school board has to pass a resolution annually and use the savings over the next 20 years to pay back the loan. Bundling the projects together, such as the roof, will help the district to pay off these projects a little quicker than if it had done them separately, according to Anderson.
“You’re going to put a new roof on anyways, so what this does is it helps you bundle the cost,” he said. “Some things will pay off much quicker, things will pay off lower, and we can use that so we can do some projects we wouldn’t be able to do.”
Cost savings
Anderson said the guaranteed range for energy savings for the district is between 20 and 30 percent, though the addition of solar panels on top of the gymnasium could potentially save the district about 80 percent annually on operating costs.
According to Anderson, the funds to cover solar panels weren’t available to the school district at the time; however, through outside investors creating a partnership with the district, it’s a very real possibility. Currently, he said there are two investors interested in such a partnership.
Anderson said even though the district will have savings in that 20 to 30 percent range, taxpayers shouldn’t expect a refund from the district on their taxes, as those dollars now become money the district can better spend elsewhere.
“What it is, is that there are certain things that you probably had to cut out of different areas that you can reallocate, but still, you can buy things that you couldn’t buy now with the same dollars,” he said.
“If you have $100,000, if you don’t need to spend it all on gas, then you can spend it somewhere else.”
Anderson said he believes a lot of schools and businesses are looking at these types of savings, though everyone will make a different decision based on their location and demographics. For example, some may update their lighting and signs in order to save energy, while some may not be in the position to install solar panels on their building. Ultimately, the money saved from energy-saving ventures can be put to good use elsewhere.
“So, one of the things we look at is how can we save money, and I think then, the common sense portion is if we don’t have to pay this money for heat or electricity and we can use it somewhere else, we’re getting the same comfort level in the building for less, then we can use those same money for something we wouldn’t have been able to if we didn’t do these projects,” he said.
Anderson said no decisions have been made at this point as to how the additional funds will be used other than paying back the state by offsetting the construction costs, though he said they will likely be used as a tool in the budgeting process.
“When we’re balancing it we say, what did we have to cut to go into this and now maybe we can say, we would have had to cut this from the budget, but now we don’t have to,” he said.
On the education side
As part of the project, Anderson said the school is putting in an energy kiosk that will allow students to monitor how energy is used throughout the school.
“So people will be able to really see what energy does,” he said.
Anderson said the hope is that this newfound understanding will additionally carry over to students’ homes.
“Because then they’ll be like, holy smokes, maybe we should turn that light off, because they realize if they leave that light on it takes up this much energy,” he said. “So, I think it’ll be a carryover on just being a good consumer.
Anderson said sensors built throughout the school will give the students practical lessons on what happens in these types of scenarios.
“In the winter, if you leave these doors open, you’ll see how much hot air goes out and how much you’ll have to recycle to get the heat back up,” he said.
Anderson said he thinks it’ll be a good learning experience for not only students, but adults as well, considering he feels people often take these types of things for granted, not because they don’t care, but because they don’t know.
“So, when people can start seeing if I do this, this is the impact of that, you can actually see it, then I think they’ll think a lot more about it,” he said. “I don’t think that’s just kids, it’s adults too, because sometimes we forget.
“We leave a window open or forget to turn off a light, we think, oh, it’s only a cent or two or we don’t really know what it does. If all of a sudden you see, gees, if I do this, that’s $5, it’s like holy smokes, I’ll turn a light off for $5, I’ll close a window or I’ll change, instead of setting my thermostat at 72, I’ll set it at 70.”
With the new system displaying these types of savings, Anderson said he believes people will begin to realize just how big of a difference small actions can truly make in conserving energy.
“I think one of the cool things will be when students bring their parents or grandparents in, they’ll be able to show them,” he said. “They’ll be able to say, ‘this is my class room, it’s yellow, we’re being good, they’re red, they did something wrong, this is probably what it is,’ and they’ll be able to show them the impact right there.
“If you put them all together, yeah, this might only save $5 a month, that might only save $3 a month, now all of a sudden you’re saving $25 to $35 a month. That’s substantial, that’s when they say, ‘I could use $25 to $35 a month, I can take my wife out to eat once a month,’ or something.”
