BUILDING MAINTENANCE/ School district utility upgrade gets an ‘A’

When Terry Grier, superintendent of schools for the Williamson County (Tenn.) School District included energy awareness and management on the district’s list of objectives for the 1999-2000 school year, Maintenance Director Bob Spong was faced with a daunting task. The system, which was growing by about 900 students a year, hosted 19,000 students at 28 schools that accounted for 2.6 million square feet of space.

The district spent about $3.7 million a year on energy, and it had a backlog of deferred maintenance projects because of a lack of funds. At the same time, the Williamson County Commission was looking for ways to cut costs. Putting an energy management program in place, Spong figured, would kill two birds with one stone: It would help the district save money that could then be used for the maintenance projects the district had been putting off.

Spong tapped Riverside, Mo.-based CMS Viron Energy Services to help him sell the idea of performance contracting – using energy savings to pay for equipment upgrades – to the community. The company estimated that the school district’s energy savings would pay for all the needed upgrades. Last year, the school district entered into an agreement, whereby the company would finance a $5.7 million upgrade under a 10-year lease that Spong says should generate $9.6 million in energy savings. (The company is guaranteeing a savings of nearly $900,000 a year.)

So far, the district has purchased a new boiler for one school and tuned up boilers at five others; undertaken water conservation measures at seven sites; installed new HVAC equipment in one school; and upgraded cooling towers at 11 schools. Lighting system retrofits also were a large part of the plan. “Light levels within classrooms are critical to the learning process, and energy-related retrofits were evaluated to ensure that they were maintained or improved,” Spong says. The contract calls for lighting systems to comply with guidelines issued by the Illuminating Engineers Society of North America.

Finally, the district centralized its energy management control system (EMCS). Most of the facilities operated by the school district had some level of EMCS, but multiple manufacturers and products hampered maintenance and control. Hardware and software varied from building to building. Under the energy management program, all facilities will have similar EMCS and communication abilities. All 28 schools will be connected on an existing district wide area network, which will allow maintenance technicians to check trouble calls from laptops at network speed.

Under the centralized system, all equipment in a given zone will be controlled with one output. Each zone has the ability to override the unoccupied mode for two hours at a time, and each can adjust room temperature. Also, zone temperature sensors are connected directly to the EMCS, allowing night setback/setup control logic.

Cost savings realized with performance contracting have allowed Williamson County to upgrade its school infrastructure, in addition to its equipment. Furthermore, the county’s schools are more comfortable for their occupants. Previously, “there was no direct responsibility for monitoring or controlling energy usage. [We knew] that taking control would pay immediate dividends,” Spong says.