The money is coming from a pre-existing program of the state's Public Service Commission. The work, which is to take place over the next six months, should reduce utility bills between $20,000 and $86,500 a year for each site. The estimated savings are so great that the projects will pay for themselves in four to nine years, depending on the school.
The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board on Thursday voted unanimously to formally accept the grant money. Only board member Patrick Martin V was absent.
Randy Morales, chief of plant operations for the school system, said he plans to apply for more PSC grants in the future as they become available. Morales said he is looking at ways to use the district's own funds to pay for more energy efficiency projects in the future.
It is unclear to what extent the school system plans to use more modern energy controls in new school construction.
The four high schools covered in the grant money are Baton Rouge, Glen Oaks, Liberty and Scotlandville high schools. Also getting new energy efficiency controls are Melrose Elementary and the district's Professional Development Center at 3000 North Sherwood Forest Drive.
Metairie-based Synergy Building Solutions is the contractor for the projects.
The Public Service Commission has five elected commissioners. Each commissioner manages the grants handed out in their districts. Davante Lewis, who represents District 3, and Craig Greene, who represents District 2, represent East Baton Rouge Parish.
Lewis's office awarded grants for five of the six school sites. Greene's office awarded one, for Liberty High.
Liberty High is where the school system expects the most annual savings, $86,548, followed by Baton Rouge Magnet High, $84,947.00. Both schools were recently modernized. Liberty High is a new facility constructed in 2016, and Baton Rouge Magnet was renovated and expanded in 2012.
The application for Liberty High makes clear that despite being only 8 years old, the school runs its heating/air-conditioning system all the time, in part, because of damaged or antiquated technology. Consequently, the school consumes far more energy than it needs to.
"A significant amount of the wireless thermostats on the current system are damaged, removed, and or not communicating to the current system," according to the application. "Because of this, the current system must be left in a manual state that does not allow for real-time communication of the critical equipment."
In its place, the school system plans to install a new master, or "global," controller as well as new controllers for all parts of the school's heating and cooling systems. The new controllers will be hard-wired and not reliant on batteries.
The new master controller comes with a new workstation that will allow school employees to control and schedule energy use throughout the campus.
Other savings are expected by remapping how the school uses electricity to ensure that "a building performs in accordance with the design intent, contract documents, and the owner's operational needs," according to information supplied to board members.
The new systems also come with training in order for district staff "to be agile in adapting to different levels of cooling capacity needed," according to the application.
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