The Blue Ridge School Board of Trustees made a significant commitment to sustainability and energy efficiency at its June meeting. This move charges the School’s administrators to move forward on the initial planning of a multi-year capital improvement project that will provide huge savings in energy costs while reducing the School’s carbon footprint.
Plans for the project began in 2015 with an energy audit for the School that dramatically confirmed what senior administrators believed to be true – our campus costs significantly more to heat, cool, and light than many of our peer schools.
Simultaneous to this revelation, and thanks to important help from the Jessie Ball duPont Fund, the BRS team learned that the equipment and technology costs required to become more efficient are lower today than ever before, making it easy to “pay yourself back” through usage savings in a timely way.
Thus, an exciting initiative was born.
The now $2 million project began in June with the creation of an energy task force comprised of School administrators who are working with energy efficiency experts to complete an engineering study.
The study’s results will give the School clear direction on where repairs and improvements need to be made. “Once we fix what’s broken,” explains Headmaster Trip Darrin, “we can then move on to incorporate a sub-metering system that will allow us to better monitor energy usage on campus.”
Once a new base-line of consumption is established, a next phase will include changing dated lighting fixtures to LED, installing energy efficient windows and doors across campus, and replacing appliances and devices in many departments which are outdated, inefficient and expensive to maintain.
The engineering study will also give the School a direction for the next steps which will need to be taken to achieve our sustainability goals. Natural gas, propane and solar power sources will be considered as alternatives where those resources might prove most beneficial to the community.
Perhaps most importantly, the entire $2 million project is expected to be complete by the end of the 2018/2019 academic year. Savings from these investments will pay back this entire amount by May 31, 2028 – ten years from completion.
“Beyond the financial benefits, we are also aware that campus environmental stewardship is just as important as energy efficiency,” says Mr. Darrin. “We love this campus; it is our greatest resource, and our knowledge of how best to take care of it continues to grow.” As such, an assessment of the current health of the campus environment will be completed in the upcoming months with a subsequent plan of action to ensure its health and viability for generations to come.
