Holiday Breaks and Energy Conservation

This is a quick reminder to all users of energy at SAD #75 school and administrative buildings. We have an excellent opportunity to maximize savings, if we only follow existing energy savings guidelines. Coupled with a few very minor suggestions, we can make every break very successful from an energy conservation standpoint, or if you’d prefer, dollars not spent on energy remain available for more direct education related purposes. So, if you would take the following steps prior to departing for a much anticipated break period, you participate directly in helping to ensure that educational programs are there for our future classes to enjoy.

  1. Turn off and unplug your computer, monitor and printer. (if applicable) Our networked computers burn about 3 watts of electricity while turned off and still plugged in. Monitors draw about the same. Money saved over the break period...about 40 cents per computer. Let’s be conservative and say there are 450 computers district wide. This simple procedure could prevent $180.00 from being spent on "power off" lights and network cards.

  2. Empty your personal refrigerator, unplug it and prop the door open. Energy consumption for these devices is determined by many factors including size, age and brand. (Are they "Energy Star" compliant?) Rest assured, these items are energy hogs. By taking home that private food and drink stash (that you won’t be tapping for the next two weeks anyway) and following the above suggestion, your personal contribution in saved energy dollars can be as little as $2.00, or as much as $8.00 for a two week period. Multiplied by the large number of personal appliances throughout the district, one begins to realize that the potential savings are not small.

  3. Unplug coffeepots, charging devices and power supplies. The bottom line here is "if you don’t need it, unplug it". Some charging devices for computers and items required for teaching may need to be left plugged in. But spare cell phone chargers and power supplies for radios and other battery-powered devices consume energy just by being plugged in. (So unplug them during the break period!)

  4. Turn off your classroom lights. This should be done at the end of every school day or when you leave the room for more than two minutes. Custodians know their way around the school and do NOT need you to leave the lights on for them.

  5. Keep all doors closed whenever possible. This includes hallway and stairwell fire doors as well. These doors can present a hazard to little fingers, so do what you must to keep them safe during school hours. But doors can and should be closed at the end of the day to help the building retain heat during the nighttime setback. Building HVAC systems are designed with the idea that all doors will be closed. Basic physics combined with some of our multi-story buildings can result in cold 1st floors and over warm 2nd and 3rd floors. This results in turning up the heat on the first floor, which means the upper floors get warmer still. Then in an effort to cool down these too warm upper floors, windows get opened and energy conservation goes "out the window". (Pun intended!)

 

Your help in making every break period successful from an energy consumption standpoint will be greatly appreciated. We all have to do our part in conserving energy and helping to keep programs alive and funded. If you have any questions on how to reduce your energy costs at home or would like information on how our district program is doing, please contact me by email at donovanb@link75.org. Have a great holiday and enjoy the break!

 

Bill Donovan

Energy Manager