The Challenge
- Escalating energy costs and already tight operating budgets
- Inefficient and outdated HVAC and water heating systems
- Various sources of energy loss throughout the facilities
- Overall environment was not optimized for learning (e.g., lighting and comfort of classrooms)
- Understood need for improvements; however, a creative solution was required to overcome budget challenges
The Solution
TEPG and its partners conducted an energy audit to learn how and where the school district was using energy.
Chassell’s customized energy savings plan included:
- Lighting improvements
- In the gymnasium, replaced incandescent and metal halide lamps with high-efficiency T8 florescent lamps with electronic ballasts
- Provided bi-level lighting in gymnasium: 50 foot candle lights for class and 100 foot candles for competitive games
- In the classrooms, hallways, offices and other areas, replaced inefficient T12 florescent lamps with high efficiency T8 florescent lamps and electronic ballasts
- Replaced boiler and upgraded domestic hot water system
- Replaced two inefficient package fire tube boilers with high efficiency condensing boilers
- Used indirect fired, domestic hot water heating
- Included variable frequency drives on the hot water heating system
- Classrooms improvements
- Installed Energy Recovery Ventilators (ERVs) thereby reducing the heating load requirements of the buildings
- ERVs also provided more comfort and eliminated cold draft issues
- Replaced weather stripping around exterior doors
- Provided intelligent occupancy sensors for concession machine control
- TEPG and its partners also quantified the amount of anticipated energy savings in terms of usage and dollars.
- TEPG also created a financing plan whereby Chassell Area Schools could use the identified savings to pay for the needed upgrades…meaning no out-of-pocket expenses for the district.