COLUMBIA, S.C.—Richland County School District One in Columbia, S.C. is implementing a district-wide comprehensive infrastructure modernization project that will see a savings of $28 million in energy costs over the next two decades.

Facing deferred maintenance on critical infrastructure in several buildings related to aged lighting and outdated HVAC equipment—and to provide healthier and safer learning environments—the school district is partnering with Schneider Electric to implement an energy savings performance contract (ESPC) that will reduce utility and operational costs by 24 percent across 15 district buildings.

Those savings will pay for further upgrades over time, saving taxpayers millions of dollars. As part of the program, Schneider Electric will partner with its local manufacturing facility within the district, employing more than 750 workers, to provide student learning opportunities and further partnerships to help the district.

“Providing a safe, healthy and enjoyable learning environment for our students and teachers is among our top priorities, especially now with new and changing regulations around indoor learning environments,” said Richland School District One Superintendent Dr. Craig Witherspoon, in a statement.

“This program with Schneider Electric will allow us to make needed upgrades to our buildings in a much smarter, more efficient and, most importantly, fiscally responsible way.”

Part of the project aims to tackle indoor air quality by updating the HVAC equipment to efficiently move air, control temperature and increase outdoor air exchange rates. With indoor environment specifications being rolled out by government organizations, the district is laying the groundwork for better control of how air moves through all facilities and designing more specific and improved points of filtration. The changes will allow the district to be responsive to new regulations.

Added Raymond Perkins, Richland School District One Director of Facility Services, “These are upgrades being recommended to all school districts, but it can also be costly to do. We have many needs in addition to air quality, so finding a way to bring all these distinct pieces together made all the difference.”

Schneider Electric will implement modern technologies that will generate savings and, in turn, create a revenue stream to help fund improvements across the district, such as:

• updated HVAC technology for cleaner environments and to regulate fresh outdoor air;
• full district-wide telecommunications overhaul, improving district-wide emergency communications and providing flexibility for distance learning;
• interior and exterior lighting upgrades to bring emergency lighting up to current building code standards;
• replacement and upgrade of critical electrical infrastructure to reduce maintenance time and extend the life of the outdated system;
• upgrade and replacement of water and restroom fixtures to further reduce waste;
• installation of a “smart-plugs” network to manage high-load devices and improve energy efficiency, and;
• building envelope improvements to renew aging buildings to better withstand extreme seasonal weather patterns and increase comfort for students and staff.

“Our innovative solutions and transparent approach to energy infrastructure upgrades will provide tremendous savings for Richland County School District One,” said Justin Shutt, Schneider Electric Business Development Executive, in a statement.

“Plus, as a local employer, Schneider Electric is proud to be supporting the Richland County community by providing long-term cost savings to the school district and boosting the local economy with jobs that support the environment.”

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In the 1960s, school design entered what might be considered its “Dark Ages.”

Tasked with building schools with large heating and cooling systems, engineers complained that expanses of glass and high ceilings were a waste. Researchers, believing views of the outdoors were distracting to learning, decided daylight wasn’t important in education. By the end of the 1970s, most schools were designed as a collection of generally dark, often drafty classrooms and lecture halls.

Today, school design is having a renaissance. According to a recent survey, green buildings—that is, buildings that help improve student health, academic achievement, and the environment—account for more than 32 percent of all construction projects in the United States. That percentage is even higher in the education sector, where more than 50 percent of all new construction projects are going green.

Building features that once seemed cutting-edge or risky to a long-term project have become the norm. These include low flow/zero flow plumbing fixtures, LED lights, and even geothermal energy generation. This evolution is set to continue as new and emerging technologies are making their way into school buildings.

One of the basics of green buildings is to start from the outside in—improve the building before you tune the space. One of the most important design elements of the sustainable building envelope today is the smart window. Smart windows predictably change their tint based on cloud cover and the angle of the sun, maximizing daylight while reducing heat and glare. Beyond the energy savings smart windows can provide, their impact on students is profound.

Study after study has shown that daylight has a positive impact on student health and learning. In one well-known report, researchers found that, compared with students in classrooms that only had artificial light, students in classrooms where windows let in daylight had 26 percent higher test scores over the course of a year.

According to one report, more than 50 percent of university professors who increased access to natural light and views in their classrooms saw a jump in student engagement. A recent study by Dr. Alan Hedge, a professor in the Department of Design and Environmental Analysis at Cornell University, showed that natural light can reduce eye strain by 51 percent, headaches by 63 percent and drowsiness by 56 percent—dramatically improving health and productivity.

Freed from the dark ages, education-oriented architects are again designing with windows. Unfortunately, traditional windows also amplify the sun’s energy like a greenhouse. Teachers are limited by the time they can seat their students near these windows before heat and glare start to make them tired and uncomfortable.

Thankfully for many universities today, traditional windows are no longer the only option.

At East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, building managers recently invested $160 million to replace the main campus’ nearly 50-year-old student center. As part of ECU’s vision to embrace innovation as an educational foundation, the university’s architects chose to install more than 24,000 square feet of smart windows in the center’s common areas and office space. “The smart windows are so important,” said Dean Smith, the director of student centers at ECU. “The connection to the outside environment helps make this place feel more open to everyone.”

Adia Craig, a student at ECU, said she’s noticed more of her peers studying in the student center since the smart windows have been installed. “It’s a clear benefit,” Craig said of the smart windows. “Nobody wants to study in a hot space.”

Many colleges and universities are catching on to this top sustainability and student performance trend. Along with ECU, View’s smart window technology has been installed at Duke University, Georgia Tech, Arizona State University, Colorado State University, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

This university activity is in addition to the libraries, museums, and high schools that have incorporated smart windows into their building design. One recent example is the Hackley School in Tarrytown, N.Y., where smart windows provide unobstructed views of the surrounding wooded landscape. It was recognized as the best K-12 Education project in New York by Engineering News Record.

Green buildings are not only healthier for their occupants, but also the environment. Smart windows improve a building’s energy efficiency by up to 20 percent and help downsize heating and cooling systems. After the San Francisco International Airport installed View smart windows in its Terminal 1, it saved $900,000 in ventilation and tens of thousands of pounds of CO2 emissions per year.

Environmental performance is becoming increasingly important to future college students. More than 2 million students in the United States apply to college every year and, more than ever, these prospective freshmen are taking a hard look at which schools put sustainability—including a healthy learning environment—first.

More than a third (37 percent) of the 120,357 freshmen that responded to a survey by UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute said that being “involved in programs to clean up the environment” was “essential” or “very important” to them.

That finding is bolstered by the results of the Princeton Review’s 2019 College Hopes & Worries Survey. Almost two thirds (64 percent) of nearly 12,000 prospective students surveyed indicated that information about a school’s commitment to the environment might impact their decision to apply to or attend the school. The Princeton Review’s annual guide to “green colleges” now gives 399 institutions a green star.

Sure, prospective students could rely on such a list. But just imagine how much more compelling a school might seem if they were to tour a lecture hall, dorm room, or student center that had been designed with their health and wellness in mind: what feelings of excitement, even school pride, a glimpse through a simple window might stir.

Dr. Tinianov’s 25-year career has been dedicated to product innovation and commercialization in the field of energy efficiency and building technology. As View’s Vice President of Industry Strategy, he leads its value-based product strategy and industry engagement.

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As with any major construction project, to achieve the strongest results and reduce risk, optimization project leaders should develop a plan that covers everything from concept and stakeholder education to design, bidding, construction, and after-project support. An optimization provider should first conduct a thorough feasibility study to determine the requirements, savings, project scope, costs, and return on investment for the project. The following steps are critical to success.

Pursue holistic optimization

Effective optimization should take a whole-system approach (rather than optimizing individual components), thoroughly monitor sensor information and measure energy use, and deliver continuous and automatic feedback to the HVAC system.

For example, an engineering site assessment at the University of Maryland’s Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) found that even a new chiller plant with few operational maintenance issues could be made more efficient. Before optimization, the plant was consuming energy at 0.9 kW/ton and operating at just 50 percent output. In the first year of optimization, IBBR’s plant cut energy use by an average of 30 percent.

Design for constraints

Facility operators must be confident that operational requirements will continue to be met when optimization is active. As part of the initial feasibility study, any optimization project should quantify operational restrictions that would constrain optimization — and ensure the product can operate within those restrictions without using more energy than is needed to meet them.

An optimization provider should identify system requirements and develop a plan for addressing them with the lowest possible energy input. The solution could be as simple as adding an occupancy schedule and night set-back set points to an air handler or installing a dedicated AC unit to provide cooling to a specific piece of equipment, allowing the chiller plant to shut down when it’s not needed.

Most facilities have dialed-in operational set points and procedures meant to fulfill worst-case conditioning and ventilation requirements. Often, systems operate at these set points even when they do not need to. Air change per hour (ACH) requirements, for example, don’t need to be fulfilled 24 hours per day in facilities that are not occupied around the clock. A particular piece of equipment that requires cooling may cause a whole chiller plant to run, even when it is the only load in the facility that requires cooling at a given time.

A feasibility study can find other hidden details that sabotage energy efficiency. At a pharmaceutical manufacturing facility, Optimum Energy conducted a feasibility analysis, followed by a detailed scoping study, that revealed the ideal solution was to optimize 35 of the 60 air handling units (AHUs). For these AHUs, we determined the retrofit scope needed to optimize each unit. The first priority was to get each AHU up to good working order before implementing optimization software.

Measure and verify

Measurement and verification (M&V) is an essential, yet often neglected, part of optimization. An M&V method helps the optimization product report the effectiveness of optimization versus the organization’s goals. If the organization has a carbon footprint reduction goal, for example, the product should report mass of CO₂ reduced in an easy-to-retrieve format.

Create a road map

The project scoping phase should include developing a robust road map that calculates the projected energy savings, clearly documents how those savings will be achieved, and provides a detailed plan of the project retrofits and tasks required to implement optimization.

When Georgia Tech pursued optimization, for example, it had to ensure that the project would provide enough savings to repay a loan from the state. So in addition to an environmental site assessment, the project team did an investment-grade audit — which took three months and covered four years’ worth of operations. With nearly $1.5 million in anticipated annual energy cost savings, the payoff is assured.

Many project managers go the traditional route of requesting multiple bids, but the road map should be developed in partnership with the contractors who will do the work. Since optimization is not yet a commoditized product, the bid winner typically is the one who provides the least optimization at the lowest price, which results in missed savings.

 Ensure quality control

In retrofit jobs, optimization may involve multiple vendors and groups. Instruments that are used as control points for optimization, or for calculating the energy input or output of the system, must be installed in the correct location, with correct orientation, and be properly calibrated.

Someone must coordinate the many activities and ensure that each part of the optimization project is installed correctly. The key is an engaged project sponsor or owner’s representative.

Plan for training and handoff

Near the end of the project, a clear handoff and training for facility personnel is essential to ensure the optimization system is used to its fullest. Proper training will help operators understand how the system is meant to work, what to expect the system to do, and what to do in the event of a problem.

Once the project is completed, facility personnel must monitor and report on the optimization. “If you’re not measuring it, you’re not optimizing it,” is a useful mantra. Periodic reviews of optimization will prevent performance drift and ensure that the project achieves the projected savings.

Optimization starts before any construction is done or software is installed and continues with measuring progress once the project is complete. Following the simple formula of comprehensive scoping plus planning will result in energy and cost savings at every site, every time.

Fred Woo, PE, is manager, engineering at Optimum Energy, where he manages a team of engineers with extensive experience in optimizing HVAC systems for sensitive environments.

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LEXINGTON, Ga. – In May, ABM launched an Energy Performance Contracting program for Oglethorpe County Schools in Lexington, with a tailored solution to help generate savings on energy costs and contribute to facility upgrades throughout the county’s school system.

The program is built to provide these facility additions and improvements with no upfront costs, with a projection of more than $9.4 million in energy and operating costs throughout a 20-year period. Now, ABM is bringing this program to another Georgia county.

In June, ABM announced the initiation of an Energy Performance Contracting program for Lowndes County Schools, which is projected to save their schools more than $13.6 million in energy and operating costs over a 15-year period, which the county will use for facility upgrades and funding toward building a new high school.

These energy and operations savings will be accomplished by implementing lighting, HVAC and control upgrades at each of the school system’s facilities. The upgrades are estimated to save Lowndes County Schools approximately $800,000 in energy and operating costs in the first year, which will progress during the lifespan of the program, resulting in the $13.6 million total savings.

“ABM’s Energy Performance Contracting program will help Lowndes County School System recognize its facilities can be functioning more efficiently and create a significant savings, while improving their students’ educational environment,” Mark Newsome, president of ABM Technical Solutions, said in a statement. “By leveraging guaranteed energy and operational savings of ABM’s program, Lowndes County School System will be able to put more funding toward new construction, while upgrading their existing facilities.”

According to the statement, infrastructure at seven of Lowndes County School System’s facilities is aging or coming to the end of its lifespan. Furthermore, the school system plans to demolish and rebuild half of Lowndes High School. The project will allow the school system to distribute additional funding to the high school project, while using the ensured energy savings to fund the other facilities’ upgrades.

The overall upgrades will include retrofitting lighting systems to energy-efficient LED lighting at five of the county’s schools, the Parker Mathis Learning Center, the Board of Education and the bus shop and maintenance buildings. HVAC units at seven different facilities will be rejuvenated and also controlled by state-of-the-art HVAC control systems to maximize energy and operational efficiency. Additionally, refrigeration management programs and high-efficiency hand dryers will be installed at six of the school system’s buildings, along with upgrading ventilation systems at Lowndes County High School and Hahira Middle School.

Ray Jordan, education specialist for ABM explained what energy performance contracting programs mean for schools in the future.

“This program allows school systems to cash flow immediate infrastructure needs with future energy and operational savings. The savings are guaranteed for the life of the program,” said Jordan. “Energy-efficient enhancements can include water conservation systems and hand dryers to help reduce utility costs and product spend, such as paper towels. As technology improves and energy conservation measures increase savings opportunities, more school systems are able to implement these types of programs. Providers that offer energy performance contracting solutions, such as ABM, can help school districts implement similar programs.”

The project launched in June 2018, and is slated for completion in June 2019.

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CONNELLSVILLE, Pa. — As energy performance becomes increasingly important in modern times, schools nationwide are jumping on board to find ways to save on energy usage and costs. The Connellsville Area School District in Pennsylvania is no exception and is now making energy efficiency a reality in its schools.

The Connellsville Area School District entered into an energy-performance contract with New York-headquatered ABM — a facility solutions provider serving the education industry — that launched in July 2017 and is scheduled for completion by October 2018. The energy-performance contract is projected to save the district more than $26 million in energy and operating costs over a 15-year period.

The energy-performance contract is not Connellsville’s first effort to create energy savings. Earlier in 2017, the district consolidated its eight elementary schools into four in a continued effort to align its operational budget with enrollment and improve the learning environment for its students.

Since then, the district has been using the energy-performance project to further cut operational costs without sacrificing educational opportunities as part of a three-year strategic financial recovery plan. In addition to savings, the project will enable the district to implement improved educational and technological initiatives.

The energy-performance program came to the Connellsville Area School District at a good time, as the school had accumulated a $6 million deficit between 2015 and 2016, according to Robert Geletko, the district’s assistant to the superintendent for finance and operations.

“The district was already in the process of getting things in order, looking at everything we were doing and what could be improved,” said Geletko. “We had to find a solution that enabled us to leverage resources that we were already putting in. That’s when ABM showed up — during the tail end of this process — and began discussions with us in January 2016. I can only see more districts taking advantage of this opportunity in the future.”

ABM worked with Connellsville Area School District schools “very collaboratively” from the beginning, according to Geletko, and helped the school to figure out where they can find the most value for what Geletko described as “declining infrastructure,” what the school spends on a daily basis and how best to reinvest those dollars.

The energy and operational savings will be achieved by implementing infrastructure upgrades to multiple facilities in the district, which includes the newly consolidated four elementary schools, the Connellsville Area High School, Connellsville Area Middle School, and the Connellsville Area Career and Technology Center.

Some district-wide improvements that will be made to Connellsville schools include the replacement of fluorescent lighting fixtures with new energy-efficient LED lighting, building envelope upgrades as well as upgrading security and safety features such as cameras and automated door lock systems. New HVAC systems designed to function at high efficiency will be installed to upgrade and rejuvenate old systems, with state-of-the-art nonproprietary controls. Upgrading water conservation measures will take place district-wide as well, with three schools benefiting from tankless hot-water heaters.

The district will install 37 new rooftop air-conditioning units at its four elementary schools as well as install new roofing overlayed at Bullskin Elementary and West Crawford Elementary schools. Additionally, upgrades will be made in six of the district’s kitchen areas with new walk-in coolers and freezers, and kitchen hood controls.

To read the entire article, check out the March/April issue of School Construction News. 

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“We are very pleased to have earned this recognition on behalf of the owner and the project team,” said Greg Wilkinson, co-chairman of the Board of Hill & Wilkinson. “Being the only Texas project also makes us proud of our team’s accomplishments.”

This isn’t the only award that the university project has received. The student services building was recognized with the Accessibility Award, presented by the Texas Governor’s Committee on People with Disabilities and Accessibility Professionals Association, and other sustainability and safety awards for the project.

The 74,000-square-foot building has a total of six sustainability awards and the feedback from those at the university is positive and also thankful for the recognition.

“…This recognition reflects UT Dallas’ commitment to sustainability and the talents of an outstanding project team, including Perkins + Will, the design architects,” said Wilkinson.

The construction of the student services building has students appreciating the design as well as taking some credit for the project itself.

“What is most gratifying to me is the fact that this building, which was constructed as an initiative of the university’s student body, has garnered such a significant amount of award,” said Rick Dempsey, associate vice president for facilities management.

The $27.5 million project was completed in just over a year and opened for students in 2011. The three-story building received its latest green building award Dec. 13.

The student services building is a place for students to participate in general enrollment activities, health services, counseling and career center, financial aid and links to other student groups, along with other amenities.

The building’s design was recognized and awarded because of its commitment to sustainability and energy saving design implementation.

The student center has a custom exterior terra cotta louver system that provides an energy efficient shading strategy, set in place to protect those inside the building from the harsh Texas heat, while reducing radiant heat gain and maximizing daylighting and views to the outdoor landscaping. The daylight harvesting efforts helped the building use 76 percent of all occupied spaces with natural lighting and 93 percent of all occupied spaces to have views to the outside.

The building utilized water conservation by installing dual flush and low flow toilets. They also used rainwater harvesting as a way to utilize non-potable water, resulting in 86 percent reduction in potable water.

Those working on the site kept the project area green as well by recycling construction debris. A total of 88 percent of construction debris was recycled — total debris of 1,170 tons and the team was able to divert 1,034 tons from landfills.

The building also features low-emitting paint, carpet and adhesives. The United States Green Building Council granted the project 52 out of 69 possible LEED points.

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