Enrollment: 39,000
Number of Schools: 48
Building Square Footage: 5,824,635
Locale: Rural
Marion County Public Schools (MCPS) operates a successful energy management program that produces significant savings. The MCPS energy management program faced many obstacles, and this case study details how the energy manager overcame them. The result is a case study that not only identifies common barriers, but also strategies to overcome these barriers. Additionally, it identifies key elements necessary for an effective O&M energy management program. The process of forming a program can often involve an evaluation and assessment of what is not working and/or what is missing from the program that is preventing it from maximizing savings.
Program Formation
Five years ago an energy service performance contractor (ESCO) approached an MCPS board member proposing to work with the district. This got the School Board thinking that saving energy would be a good idea. The board did their homework first, visiting two neighboring school districts – one working with an ESCO, and one doing it in-house. Seeing how these two districts developed an energy management program that translated in financial savings sold the board on starting a program of their own. The board decided it could be done within the district and hired Robert Van Der Like to manage the program.
Van Der Like spent his first year learning the system and gathering past energy billing information to establish a baseline. Over the next few years, skepticism over the energy program’s potential grew. Van Der Like identified two reasons for this. First, newly elected board members were unfamiliar with the research that had been done, and second, the board member that spearheaded the program began asking why they weren’t saving the amount estimated by the ESCO. Van Der Like pointed out a few reasons why the program hadn’t met the board’s expectations:
1. They were comparing apples and oranges. Savings were calculated in two different ways. Van Der Like realized that the ESCO calculated their projected savings to account for cost avoidance or load creeps, which can add up over time. For example, he noted that one of the high school’s energy consumption was flat – it wasn’t going up, but it wasn’t going down either. To the casual observer, one is inclined to think that consumption has to go down to indicate that savings have occurred. However, over the past half-decade schools have increasingly added computers and other energy-intensive appliance loads. Mechanical systems age every year, becoming less efficient. This is load creep – the school’s consumption should have increased, but the energy savings program offset that increase, which means the high school had actually saved energy. Van Der Like hadn’t accounted for that. The fact that the school did take action to save energy was verified with a lighting survey. Lighting occupancy sensors were put in place to measure light usage, and showed that there were very few times when lights were on and the classrooms were unoccupied, suggesting that the message was getting out.
The Solution: Van Der Like recalculated his numbers using a load creep factor and was able to show that by taking load creep into account the actual savings were not far off their original projection. The rest of the shortfall could be attributed to the next two problems identified by Van Der Like – the voluntary nature of the program, and the lack of accountability.
2. The program was voluntary. Van Der Like, working alone, could not check to ensure all 48 schools were doing everything they were supposed to do. He asked principals in each school to be program champions and to help hold the staff accountable. But since the program had no top-level enforcement, it was viewed as voluntary. Since principals already have a full plate, voluntary programs do not make the cut. Unless they are institutionally connected to accomplishing savings, principals are not going to invest the time necessary to ensure that checklists, guidelines, and procedures of the program are followed.
The Solution: Van Der Like’s explanation of the obstacles presented by the program’s voluntary nature led to the board integrating the energy management program into the district’s 3-year business plan. The School Board established a goal to reduce energy consumption by eliminating waste 5% compared to the baseline year. Making the program a part of the district business plan helped move it from voluntary to mandatory. Van Der Like believes this was vital because it institutionalized the program and demonstrated their commitment to ensuring that the principals keep it as a priority. Each principal has to write out a plan about how they will accomplish their goal, and how they see it through.
3. The district didn’t hire the number of people needed to oversee the program of this size. The ESCO proposal required the district hire two people for energy management to oversee the work for 48 schools. After 4 years the School Board had still not added the second person. Van Der Like believes that in order to reach potential savings the operational and maintenance checklists and shutdown procedures must be enforced - staff must be held accountable to their assigned tasks. Although the strategic plan made the program mandatory, it was still, in a sense, voluntary because there was insufficient staff to enforce it. In essence, it had no teeth. To have a good accountability program requires someone to check each school and see that expectations are being met, and checklists are followed.
The Solution: Van Der Like made it clear to the board in the beginning that to get the increases in savings in the 2nd and 3rd years they would have to do more than just an energy awareness program. The next level of savings required an accountability program - that is, a program that does not just proide information, checklists and procedures and ask that they are implemented, but rather ensures they are implemented. In order to get the account-ability program, Van Der Like needed the district to hire one more person. To make his case, Van Der Like took several of the board members to visit another school district that had an energy accountability program. They saw that when that district cut energy management positions from three to one, the energy savings went down, and when they corrected themselves by hiring back those positions, the savings went back up. Van Der Like indicated that on the way back from the trip, he and those board members continued to discuss this element of the program. By the end of the trip, these School Board members (especially the new ones) were convinced of the need to allocate the resources to hire another program manager.
Elements of the O&M Energy Management Program
Monitoring Energy Bills – Van Der Like reviews the school district’s monthly electric bills. “Although you can’t catch everything, there are obvious things that come up that can be easily spotted if someone is taking the time to do it,” he notes. In his four years on the job he’s caught $35,000 in billing errors. Yet the “mother of all billing errors” occurred recently. He noticed a school was using 10-15 percent more energy than the next highest school but he couldn’t determine the reason. Tests on the meter showed nothing. After Van Der Like pushed further, the utility company replaced the meter. A thorough inspection revealed a manufacturer’s defect that caused it to read 25 percent higher usage than actual – for the past 11 years. The utility company gave the district a rebate check for $294,000! Van Der Like notes that while it is rare to be able to find such a huge error, it is possible. Multiple small errors can add up, too.
Training and Motivating Maintenance/Custodial Staff – This next level of savings, achieved through accountability, requires specific training and feedback. It takes more effort to investigate the specific loads for each school, know how they are controlled, set up a schedule, identify responsible individuals, train and encourage them, and continuously check to make sure they are successful. Van Der Like saw training as more than an opportunity to show the staff what and how to do it, but also why, and what impact that action has. It also gives them a sense of empowerment. For example, Van Der Like says that it is important when you are training a custodian, not only tell that person that every Friday before they leave they must go into the panel box and turn off switch X and Y, but to also tell that doing this will help save the district X dollars, and that if every school does this, it will save this many thousands of dollars. Van Der Like says that many custodians already know where energy savings can be found, but they sometimes feel they are not allowed to get involved with that aspect of school business. An accountability program helps to empower them to take action without “fear of reprisal,” rather custodians taking the initiative to recommend changes that will save energy are recognized and praised.
Indicators of Success
• Obtaining a formal district commitment by getting the School Board to commit to saving energy
in the district’s business plan;
• Hiring a second person to assist Van Der Like in managing the program;
• Beginning an accountability program; and
• Savings: Marion County Public Schools saving the district $1.2 million over the first four years
of the program (adjusted for load creep).
Next Steps
Due to Van Der Like’s successful lobbying of the School Board, the program is currently transitioning into an accountability program. The district has hired a second energy management specialist to aid Van Der Like in overseeing the district’s 48 schools.
Van Der Like also plans to begin having staff read the meters twice a week – the beginning of the day on Monday, and the end of the day on Friday to give energy data for the workweek and the weekend. Weekly summaries will allow them to establish an average (seasonal) daily use, which could become a benchmark for comparing future data results. Also, it can be an early warning that something is wrong as automated controls can malfunction. Weekly readings will increase detection of these types of problems. Otherwise it will go unnoticed until the bill comes, and by then possibly wasting $800 to $2,000 in energy use. It’s the same concept as a water leak. If noticed early and promptly addressed, it will show a minimum increase on the bill. If the leak goes unnoticed, the next bill will be hundreds of dollars more than normal.
Prepared by:
Princeton Energy Resources International
1700 Rockville Pike
Suite 550
Rockville, MD 20852
HPowell Energy Associates
20 Acton Road
Westford, MA 01886
Alliance to Save Energy
1200 18th Street, NW
Suite 900
Washington, DC 20036