Holiday Shut Downs
Fall colors are in the air, pumpkin spice is everywhere, and that means the winter holidays are right around the corner. For k-12 schools, the three week winter recess represents one of the year’s biggest opportunities to save energy and reduce costs. U.S. school districts spend more on energy than on computers and textbooks combined, to the tune of $6-8 billion annually. Reducing energy waste through conservation and efficiency not only lowers costs, but it also helps districts reach sustainability targets by lowering schools’ greenhouse gas footprints.
With Prop. 39 channeling funding for efficiency projects into k-12 school districts, many CA schools are consuming – and wasting – less energy than ever before. However, even as schools upgrade boilers and chillers and swap out old fluorescent tubes for LEDs, human behavior remains a largely untapped source of potential savings. By promoting energy literacy, tracking and incentivizing energy efficient behavior, and offering public recognition for students, teachers, and facilities staff who help reduce energy waste, school districts can supercharge the savings that are built into state-of-the-art retrofits. Nowhere is this principle more evident than in long recesses like winter break, when mobilizing the school community to conduct energy-showdowns can result in dramatically lower energy costs.
With Prop. 39 channeling funding for efficiency projects into k-12 school districts, many CA schools are consuming – and wasting – less energy than ever before. However, even as schools upgrade boilers and chillers and swap out old fluorescent tubes for LEDs, human behavior remains a largely untapped source of potential savings. By promoting energy literacy, tracking and incentivizing energy efficient behavior, and offering public recognition for students, teachers, and facilities staff who help reduce energy waste, school districts can supercharge the savings that are built into state-of-the-art retrofits. Nowhere is this principle more evident than in long recesses like winter break, when mobilizing the school community to conduct energy-showdowns can result in dramatically lower energy costs.
With over 15 years of experience empowering k-12 students to promote behavior-based energy efficiency in CA schools, the Alliance to Save Energy’s PowerSave Schools Program has supported hundreds of student teams in creating winter break energy shutdown strategies. Spreading awareness about the importance of turning off lights and HVAC systems, shutting down computers, and unplugging/venting under-used refrigerators takes a multi-pronged approach that combines shutdown checklists with in-person interactions delivered throughout the week preceding winter recess. When it comes to promoting energy efficiency in k-12 schools, the persuasive power of students cannot be understated. Whereas an email reminder is easy to overlook, a personalized checklist hand-delivered by a student is nearly impossible to ignore. The most successful holiday shutdown campaigns involve a combination of student-led initiatives including shut-down checklists, in-person connections between students, teachers, and custodians, and student shutdown patrols.
Shut Down Checklist: Carson HighChecklists are an effective vehicle for promoting best practices, particularly when they invoke personal connections between teachers and their students. In the Los Angeles Unified School District, AP Environmental Science students from Carson High School put a holiday spin on their checklists by writing energy-saving tips on hand-made ornaments to be hung from classroom doors. As if that weren’t already memorable enough, they attached fun-size candy bars to each door ornament to sweeten the deal. The students hand-delivered ornaments to each classroom and administration offices during the week leading up to winter recess. Between December and January, Carson High reduced energy consumption by over 20,000 kilowatt-hours compared to their base period for a savings of $3,643
|
|
|
Patrols and Interval Data at Richmond HighIn West Contra Costa Unified School District, three students at Richmond High School took winter break energy shutdowns to another level by harnessing the power of interval data to identify and address energy waste during unoccupied hours. Their shutdown campaign began with checklists, distributed to each teacher in their mailboxes during the week leading up to winter break. Then on the last day of school the students stayed after the final bell to go room-by-room turning off lights, HVAC, and computer monitors. Along the way, they reminded teachers to shut down their classrooms and left memes posted on the doors of rooms where they discovered unnecessary electronics left running. Coordinating with the school’s facilities staff and accessing interval data from the school’s smart meter were the final pieces of Richmond High’s winter shutdown campaign. Students arranged a meeting with the school’s plant manager, district energy manager, and Principal DeLeon, and set a new maintenance procedure whereby the custodial staff would only light the hallways and rooms that they were working in during their cleaning rotation. Then, working in collaboration with the Alliance to Save Energy’s support staff, students analyzed interval data from the school’s smart meter to identify spikes in energy consumption during winter break, reporting them to the district’s energy manager. During the months of December and January, Richmond High reduced energy consumption by 59,973 kilowatt-hours, saving $8,852
|
