Energy savings help close school district’s budget gap

Advanced Energy Management (AEM) uses real-time sensors and monthly utility data to track electricity and natural gas usage in about 90 large buildings throughout Garfield County. The data empowers building managers to make adjustments and optimize energy efficiency, according to CLEER data and energy analyst Christina Matzl. All GCE members receive basic-level AEM tracking of their priority buildings, and operators receive regular reports of building performance as a part of their membership.

The first six months of the Roaring Fork School district’s pilot project demonstrated that simple, no-cost operational and behavioral changes – such as lowering heating and cooling settings and turning off lights during unoccupied hours – save significant amounts of energy and money, and reduce emissions in the bargain.

Facing a budget shortfall, the district is looking to reduce operating costs wherever possible to avoid cutting staff, explained chief operating officer Ben Bohmfalk. He was hopeful that AEM would lead the way to significant savings on energy, and the six-month report confirmed it.

“Consulting services will promise to deliver on things all day long, but [the CLEER team] has really delivered on this,” he said.

Five of the six participating school buildings were selected because their lighting and HVAC systems had recently been automated, making it easier to track their energy consumption. The sixth, Crystal River Elementary in Carbondale, hasn’t yet been automated but was deemed a high priority to study because its energy use was unusually high.

All the buildings are over 50,000 square feet, which is significant because the state of Colorado has introduced new performance benchmarking requirements for buildings of that size. The data collected by AEM will feed into the state’s standardized scoring system and provide baseline values against which the buildings will have to show performance improvements in the coming years.

The report graphs each school’s performance, as indicated by energy intensity (its total energy use per square foot) and EnergyStar score (the benchmarking score that the state relies on).

Five of the six schools – Basalt Elementary, Basalt High, Crystal River Elementary, Roaring Fork High and Sopris Elementary – all showed steady improvements in energy efficiency during the monitoring period. The one outlier was Glenwood Springs Middle School. Its average energy consumption actually increased by 20%, but that was because air conditioning was installed in the school for the first time last summer.

Bohmfalk said participation in AEM has more than paid for itself, and he’s happy to outsource the monitoring because district staff need to focus on their core duties. “That’s why the partnership has been so critical,” he said. “Without CLEER and NET, we would not have been able to gather all the data.”

The school district will likely continue the AEM contract into the 2025-26 school year, monitoring the original six schools along with three or four additional ones. With the monitoring system and protocols set up, Bohmfalk said, it should be relatively easy to maintain the low-hanging-fruit operational changes that have been made in the first six schools, incorporate them into the additional schools, and from there make continuous improvement toward optimal building performance.

If you would like to deploy AEM energy monitoring at your large building or facility, please contact Christina Matzl at cmatzl@cleanenergyeconomy.net.