Energy savers highlight 'cost-neutral' project

The Valley Stream Central High School District approved a new contract with energy company Johnson Controls on Feb. 10 to overhaul the district’s energy systems, which the district claims will cost nothing.

“There is no cost associated with this project. It actually will not even be a budgeted item, because we anticipate it being, at the very least, cost-neutral,” said Superintendent Bill Heidenreich. “We pay them a fee up front, but that fee is savings-guaranteed. That means if our energy savings don’t match the payment, they refund us the difference.”

Johnson Controls will receive just over $7 million for the upgrades, which will include new energy-saving electrical fixtures and computer terminals at each school, repairs to each school’s gymnasium, and new heating components. Heidenreich said the upgrades would cut the district’s energy costs by nearly 40 percent per year.

“They’ll be installing new lights and outlets that will have a timer on them,” he said. “This way, if someone leaves a light on in an empty classroom overnight or over a weekend, it won’t stay on the whole time. We’ll also be able to do the same thing with our computers. Right now they’re left in a sleep mode, which does help save some power, but with our new system, we’ll be able to safely power everything down from a central location, saving us more energy.”

Solar panels will be installed on the roof of Memorial Junior High School, and are expected to cut energy costs by nearly $2,000 per year.

Heidenreich said that the district had been looking into making such changes. “We’re always looking to save as much money as possible, no matter where we can save that money,” he said. “There wasn’t any one event that motivated this project. We’ve been looking to become more energy-efficient, both because it’s good for our environment and it would save us on energy costs. We spoke with other districts who had done work with Johnson Controls, and they were all very satisfied with their work, so we decided it would be worth exploration at the very least.”

The process began more than 18 months ago, when Johnson Controls visited each school in the district to see where money could be saved.

The company did an energy audit and “recommended that we take those steps in order to cut our energy costs,” Heidenreich said. “We then presented the idea to the community at our building tours earlier this year, and now they were approved by the board.”

While plenty of work has already gone into the project, the upgrades will not begin for about another 18 months. The plans will need to be sent to the New York State Education Department, where they will be subject to an environmental study.

“Turnaround for that kind of study by the state is about 12 to 18 months,” Heidenreich said. “After that is approved it will take about a year or so to complete. We’ll have to do the construction in bits and pieces to ensure construction won’t interfere with classes, hence the length of the project.”