Ridgewood school district’s energy program produces results
JULY 11, 2014 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, JULY 11, 2014, 12:31 AM
BY JODI WEINBERGER
STAFF WRITER
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A “behavior modification” program designed to conserve the district’s energy use has turned in significant savings, but when put against the cost of hiring an energy conservation company, the district is just breaking even.
Last year, the Board of Education signed on for a three-year contract with energy-savings company Cenergistic for $168,600 per year and hired an energy specialist for $75,000 per year.
Although the data is not complete, Business Administrator Michael Falkowski told the Board of Education at a meeting on Monday, June 23, that a conservative estimate of savings puts them at 14.3 percent, or $128,235.
It’s been difficult to fully calculate energy savings, said Falkowski, because the district is in the process of disputing some bills with PSE&G. Falkowski said savings could be about 20 percent when all the information is compiled.
If the district does not break even, Cenergistic will fund the difference because it’s a “no loss” contract. When Cenergistic first pitched the program, they hoped for Ridgewood to see a savings of more than $3 million over 10 years, representing a roughly 30 percent reduction in expected energy costs.
“It’s been difficult to produce a comparison from year to year when the data isn’t available,” Falkowski said.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/education/energy-program-producing-results-1.1049698#sthash.rzUGCbRe.dpuf
I’d love to know what reccomendations the $250k spent produced.
Specifically:
1) how many reccomendations required somone with energy saving expertise to produce vs reccomendations that were common sense
2) What percent saving is atibutable to each energy savings reccomendation.
That would be one good way to measure the actual value of the money spent on the “energy professionals”