Energy
Tips for Conserving & Buying Energy-Efficient Appliances - Take Some Action
Conserving energy in your school is one of the easiest and most effective
ways to make a difference in your operational costs and help save the
environment at the same time. The
Department of
Energy reports that taxpayers spend $6 billion a year for schools’ energy
bills, which is 25% more than necessary, and that money could, instead, be used
to buy 40 million new textbooks or 30,000 new teachers.
Energy Conservation Tips for your School!
1. One of the easiest ways to make an immediate
difference in electricity consumption is to examine your school’s light use.
Consider installing
motion-sensor
lights that will only allow lights to be on when people are in a room.
Also consider installing
compact
flourescent, T8, or T5 bulbs as long as you are aware of the safety
precautions and how to properly dispose of them.
Click here to learn more. Another, often overlooked, option for
conserving light use is to find out if you are using more light bulbs than
necessary. This takes only a minimal effort and can be done as a
student-lead project using a
light-meter and recording the light levels in each room. A template
for such a project can be found here in the
light chapter of this school energy audit by BPA.gov. Besides
retrofits, consider making a concerted effort to develop a system where teachers
and students work together to make sure lights are not left on when not in use.
2. Pay attention to temperature-- a little bit
makes a huge difference! Turning down the thermostat just two degrees can
save 6% of your carbon dioxide emissions during the winter according to
Power Scorecard.
Consider installing
programmable thermostats in all the rooms that can automatically lower and
raise your school‘s temperature according to hours of use.
HomePowerMonitoring.com states
that turning the temperature down to 65°F can save 10% on annual heating and
cooling costs. During the day,
Power Scorecard
recommends that you keep the thermostat at 68 degrees.
3. Freezers and refrigerators are some of the hungriest energy consuming
appliances, and
therefore, they offer a huge potential for savings.
Power Scorecard
recommends you set the temperature of refrigerators to 37 degrees and freezers
to 3 degrees.
The Phantom Hunter says this is best done by getting an accurate reading of
the temperatures with an actual thermometer. Taking readings of the
temperatures in freezers and fridges would be an easy and fun project for
students to do.
Power Scorecard also recommends checking the gaskets around the doors to
make sure they are sealed tightly.
4. When you replace or buy a new line
of appliances, make sure they have the
Energy
Star Label. The
Union of Concerned Scientists explains that these items may cost a little
more initially, but the pay-back in energy savings will only be a couple years.
Energy Star
reports that consumers can cut their energy bills by 30% if they use all
Energy-Star qualified products.
Click here for tips on buying these products. The Department of Energy
offers
more
information about identifying and replacing energy hungry appliances.
You can compare prices for energy-saving appliances for schools and offices at
Debra’s List. You can even conserve energy beyond your school grounds
by supporting products and companies that have the
Green-e Certified Label.
5. Reign in “phantom energy!”
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory explains
that many idle appliances use energy even when they are not on if they are still
plugged in. These “phantom energy” users consume 5% of domestic energy.
The Phantom Hunter offers an easy tip to solve this problem: simply plug
electronics into power strips with on/off buttons so that when people leave the
room or leave for the day, they can simply turn off the power strip. This
would especially be effective in something like a computer lab where power
strips are full of plugs.
6. Why not just plain save money by
simply using energy at different times? How do you
do that? By reducing your “peak demand,” which is the maximum amount of
energy you use for a fifteen or thirty-minute interval during each monthly
billing cycle. Energy providers charge a capacity demand charge on each
bill based on this highest interval of energy use, and the charge can be quite
high, sometimes twice as much as the rest of the bill. This charge can be
reduced by first estimating when your highest use time period usually is.
For many schools it’s probably sometime in mid-morning when the kitchen is in
full use preparing lunch and classrooms and offices are in full function, using
appliances and lights. Some energy providers offer a special metering
package where you can see exactly when your peak demand is each month. One
you determine when your peak demand is, simply come up with a plan to use less
during that period. For example, teachers can turn off all computers for
two hours and use other teaching methods during that time. You could also
shut down the copy rooms for those two hours.
7. Replace clogged air filters in
air-conditioning and heating systems.
Power Scorecard
explains that they have to work harder and use more energy when they are drawing
air through dirty filters.
HomePowerMonitoring.com and
Power Scorecard report
that it can save as much as 10% and 5% of the energy in a home, respectively,
and though that may be less in schools, it’s still a significant amount.
8. Have your ductwork checked and sealed if there
are significant leaks. Read
HomePowerMonitoring.com’s tips for more information on sealing leaks.
9. Seal and weather-strip your doors and windows
to prevent heat or air conditioning
from escaping. If your school has only single pane windows,
Energy Hog’s
Checklist recommends replacing them with
low-e coated windows or
ENERGY
STAR windows. Even just adding storm windows can reduce your winter heat
loss by 25–50 %.
10. Tackling water use can save more energy than you think!
First,
Power Scorecard
recommends turning down the thermostat for the water heater from the average
140° to a more conservative 120° F. Just this difference would prevent
1,200 pounds of carbon dioxide from being emitted from the typical water heater.
Also consider using less hot water by using less water in general by installing
low-flow shower
heads or
sink aerators.
Power
Scorecard states that
low-flow shower
heads cost just $10 to $20 each and provide a satisfying shower.
The
Phantom Hunter explains that
sink aerators
save water by fluffing it up so that less water still gets the job done.
If your school uses washing machines, it can save 80 to 85% of the energy
normally used to run the machines by only washing with cold water (
U.S.
Department of Energy).
11. Put your computers into hibernating mode or completely turn them off when
not in
use. This not only saves energy but increases the life of your hard drive.
Click here to learn how to put your computer in hibernating mode. For more
technical information about different sleep features and how to implement them
across an entire network, check out
Energy Star’s Tips. You can also save energy by turning your monitor off
every time you walk away or at least setting it so that it will automatically
turn off after only a couple minutes. This is different than relying on a
screensaver, which according to
The Phantom Hunter, doesn’t actually save energy anyway.
Websites offering more conservation tips:
Click here to watch the exciting
The Phantom Hunter Video from
Humboldt State Green Campus
that takes you on a wild tour of energy saving techniques.
These three websites offer some more quick tips: Power Scorecard’s
Twenty Things You Can Do
to Save Energy,
Energy Hog’s
Checklist, and
HomePowerMonitoring.com.
For more detailed and specific tips, check out excerpts from
No-regrets Remodeling
offered by Home Energy Magazine
that gives you specific tips broken up by clickable topics. All the
entries are from a book that
can be purchased if you want all of the contents.
If you still have questions about conservation techniques, try the Department of
Energy’s Ask an Expert
Function.
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Build conservation education through school-wide programs & awareness!
Educating staff, students, and parents about energy conservation can be as easy
as putting up a poster in the hallway or as extensive as running a school-wide
campaign involving hands-on experiential learning by everyone.
Order
cool posters here!
They are free for schools in the northeast as long as you agree to display them
in a public location. For schools in other parts of the country, you can
order them for 12 dollars each or get more for a reduced rate.
If you want to get more involved, consider becoming a Green School in the
Alliance to Save
Energy’s Green School Program. This school-wide program involves
teaching about energy in the classroom, creating school-wide awareness that
spreads to the community, and actually saving energy. Check out these
case studies of
schools across the country that have taken action under this program.
For a program focused more on the saving money aspect of energy conservation,
check out this manual prepared by Princeton Energy Resources International for
the US Department of Energy:
School Operations and Maintenance: Best Practices for Controlling Energy Costs.
It goes over how to set up a successful energy management program and build
support. You can read about six school districts across the country that
have already found success using the program.
If you want to start your own energy awareness & conservation program, use
Tips for Implementing a
School-wide Energy Efficiency Program as your guide. It includes 10
easy-to-understand steps.
What’s the Dilly with Fluorescents?
Are you confused about the difference between fluorescents and incandescents or
about all the dangerous things you may have heard recently about fluorescents?
What is a fluorescent light anyway? Weren’t fluorescent lights the old long
tubes we used to have in most office rooms that took forever to warm up and made
an eerie buzzing sound?
What we commonly refer to as fluorescent lights are miles ahead of the long
buzzing tubes of the past. There are
many different
shapes and sizes of fluorescent lights on the market, but all of the new
models share one thing in common: they are way more energy efficient than old
fluorescents and traditional incandescent bulbs!
In fact,
Power Scorecard
explains that the most common type, known as
CFLs, use only
¼ of the energy that an incandescent uses, and they last 8-12 times longer.
Energy Hog adds that
95% of the energy that goes into incandescents is only used to heat the bulb
anyway. For more on the positive benefits of fluorescents, watch this
short video from
realworldgreen.com.
Fluorescents and incandescents create light in different ways. To learn
more, check out
how
fluorescents work from
HowStuffWorks
and
how
incandescents work from
wiseGEEK.
Are you afraid to use fluorescent lights because you heard they contain mercury
and are hazardous? Don’t worry—we’re here to give you the truth and
clear-up the misconceptions. The fact is fluorescents do have a tiny
amount of mercury in them. But fact is they are still way better for the
environment than traditional incandescent light bulbs. The
Energy Star Fact Sheet About CFLs puts the mercury issue into perspective.
Energy Star explains that the amount of mercury in a CFL is actually 125
times less than a single old thermometer which contains 500 mg of mercury.
The small amount of mercury in a CFL is still a small risk to the environment,
but that’s why there are
recycling programs
around the country to collect the old bulbs when you dispose of them. But,
even if none of the CFLs in the U.S. were properly recycled and they were all
sent to a landfill where they all happened to get smashed, it would only
constitute .1 % of our total mercury emissions as a country. Compare that
number to the massive amount of mercury released by electricity production here
in the United States. The
EPA states that coal power production alone contributes over 40% of our
mercury emissions. If you think about how CFLs save ¾ of the electricity
that would otherwise be used to operate an incandescent bulb, there is a
dramatic savings in overall mercury being released into the environment.
Energy Star explains that every CFL used in place of an incandescent will
actually save up to 4.5 mg of mercury from being released, or even in the worst
case when the bulb ends up in a landfill, it will still save 4.1 mg of mercury
from being released. Lastly, although mercury is a critical component to
these bulbs, the amount contained in them has dropped considerably and with new
technologies, continues to drop.
But, how about the mercury risk to you and your students’ personal health if a
bulb is broken? Bulbs should always be handled carefully and when they are
broken, they do need to be cleaned up responsibly, but the recent flood of
terrifying news articles may be creating unnecessary fear. The
EPA states
that you don’t have to hire a professional to clean up the mess. They
offer
safety
guidelines for cleaning up a broken bulb or tube safely. And after the
mess has been cleaned up appropriately according to the guidelines, there is
very little risk of dangerous exposure.
Where do you recycle bulbs after they die?
All you need to do is enter
your zip code and the type of bulb here at
Earth
911 and they will give you a list of local recycling centers or programs.
And, if you happen to live in California, there are
recycling resources listed by
county here.
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For any further questions about energy efficient lights, check out this
very informative
page from eartheasy or this
page from Energy
Star.
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