Enigin Update - Federal Energy Efficiency Funds Boosts for Schools
THE MIDWEST U.S. city of Cincinnati’s Public Schools are focusing on "greening" its new buildings and also looking how they can energy costs in 26 of its older buildings.
Some of the “older” buildings were built only five or six years ago and the city is using more than $23 million in federal stimulus money to upgrade these buildings. Although this project is in just one city the pattern is being duplicated across the country with the help of federl money.
The Energy Conservation Program allows school districts to access low-interest federal loans for energy efficiency projects. Across the state, Ohio, more than 500 school districts applied for loans.
The projects must pay for themselves within 15 years, and the CPS know this will not be a problem.
District officials estimate the Cincinnati Public Schools projects, including installing energy efficiency lighting systems, will cut energy costs up to 25 percent in each building. That will save the district roughly $1.5 million a year and means the loan will pay itself off with interest within 15 years.
"After that, the district just saves that money from then on," said Paul Shirley, a project manager for GBBN Architects, the firm handling half of the district's $1.1 billion school rebuilding project.
The district's energy conservation efforts started in 2008 when it partnered the University of Cincinnati, General Electric and the Green Partnership for Greater Cincinnati to do "energy audits" of district buildings.
U.C. students identified several ways to save money. Rather than using its own maintenance fund, the cash-strapped district applied for and won a $20 million loan through the federal Energy Conservation Program.
Enigin Distributors are helping many schools, universities and colleges to save substantially on energy costs, plus with the new Eniscope Real-time Renewable Energy Display being particularly fitting for education to monitor and display the performance of any renewable energy technology they have installed.
The type of funding being accessed by Cincinnati Public Schools will help Enigin Distributors across the country, and globally with similar programmes in other nations, to aid even more in the educational sector to become energy efficient.
Picture by Keith Lanser
