Every year, K-12 facilities waste millions of dollars in excess energy consumption. Those dollars may take the form of lost heat through walls, windows, doors, and roofs. Or the villain may be poorly conceived or mismanaged control systems. Those excess funds that districts are sending to the local utility companies could be invested "at home" to…

Information technology (IT) is becoming increasingly pervasive throughout society as more data is digitally processed, stored, and transferred. The infrastructure that supports IT activity is growing accordingly, and data center energy demands have increased by nearly a factor of four over the past decade. This dissertation investigates how…

Many organizations, including colleges and universities, are moving to address the threat of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from their operations. For example, the rapid growth of participation in the Presidents Climate Commitment (PCC) now means that more than 600 colleges and universities have pledged to develop plans…

In the last several years, the growing demand that education institutions incorporate sustainable design and construction concepts in school facility plans has created a greater emphasis on using life-cycle costing. The use of long-lasting materials and equipment enables schools and universities to avoid the unnecessary consumption of energy and…

This article discusses Hawaii's energy conservation efforts. Faced with high electricity costs, the Hawaii Department of Education instituted a pilot program in which schools could earn back half the amount they saved in electricity over the course of a semester. As a result, one school's electricity use decreased by more than 10% for the…

With taxpayers' considerable investment in schools, it is critical for school districts to preserve their community's assets with new construction or renovation and effective facility maintenance programs. "High-performance" school buildings are designed to link the physical environment to positive student achievement while providing such benefits…

Daylighting a space is both an art and a science. The impact of daylight can make a building's design come to life. Daylighting can be carried out skillfully, or it can be too casually considered or totally misunderstood. Bad daylighting is devastating to a space and costly to fix. Today, in this era of sustainable design, daylighting is given…

When Arthur Stellar came to Massachusetts' Taunton Public Schools in 2005, he knew that part of his job as superintendent would be cost cutting. That's no easy task without sacrificing the quality of education the district provided. How to decrease what you spend without eliminating vital resources? One way, Stellar says, is to assess what you're…

Ground-coupled heating-cooling systems (GCHCSs) exchange heat between the built environment and the subsurface using pipework buried in trenches or boreholes. If heat pumps in GCHCSs are powered by "green electricity," they offer genuine carbon-free heating-cooling; for this reason, there has been a surge in the technology in recent…

This article discusses why building commissioning for education institutions is needed. School facilities owners and operators should confirm whether their building systems are performing as expected. The more comprehensive the confirmation process, the greater opportunity there is for reducing operations and maintenance costs, and improving…

Describes how the LaPorte Independent School District in Texas turned to ultraviolent light devices installed within the HVAC system to combat mold and fungus after conventional approaches failed. Describes the additional benefits of energy savings from the system. (EV)

Discusses ways to cut rising energy costs within university laboratories by using heat recovery systems and variable volume exhaust hood systems. Explores the implementation of broad-based, sustainable laboratory classroom design concepts. (GR)

Describes installation of a hybrid chilled water/ice thermal storage plant for the Lucile Erwin Middle School in Loveland, Colorado, which has saved more than $18,000 in energy costs annually. (EV)

Describes how the Brevard County School District in Florida teamed with companies EPRI and Florida Power and Light to implement a dual-path, low temperature air-distribution system used in conjunction with thermal energy storage. (EV)

Heat recovery systems are operating successfully in climates ranging from that of Florida to those of Michigan and New Jersey. (Author/MLF)