Articles

Energy Boost

For more than a year, a rising demand for energy and a shrinking supply of it has made headlines throughout the country. The scandal surrounding the collapse of energy giant Enron made sure the headlines would only be more prolific.

To make sure education facilities have a more-than-adequate power supply without either depleting tight school budgets or adding to the country’s problems, the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) in Washington, D.C., offers a new booklet on energy conservation within education facilities.

We talk with Steve Kiesner, director of national accounts for EEI, about the association, the booklet, and ways in which educational facilities can reduce costs by boosting energy conservation.

Jay Schneider: Can you tell us a little about EEI? What is the association’s overall goal? Who are your members?

Steve Kiesner: The EEI is a trade association for investor-owned electric utilities, as well as their international affiliates and international associates. We were organized back in 1933.

In 2000, our members served more than 90 percent of the ultimate customers in the investor-owned segment of the industry. The ultimate customers are those using the electricity. We also represent nearly 70 percent of all ultimate electric utility customers in the nation. About 80 percent of our members are dual-fuel providers; some members might own gas operations, some might own wind farms.

We work closely with our members, representing their interests, advocating their public policy issues, and ensuring equitable policies in legislative and regulatory arenas. We deal with all the regulatory agencies that affect the electric industry. Of course, we deal with Capitol Hill, the current administration, and with the various public policies having to do with energy.

JS: What are some issues you’re advocating on behalf of your members?

SK: The big one, the big enchilada, is what’s happening on Capitol Hill, and that’s the National Energy Policy. We’ve been representing our members’ interests there and that will affect the ultimate customers, we believe, in a positive way. Within that national policy, we’re advocating the shoring up our infrastructure, in both generation as well as transmission delivery, and anything else that affects our electric utility companies, ranging from human resources issues to environmental issues.

JS: When you say you represent the companies that serve about 90 percent of the ultimate customers, what about the other 10 percent?

SK: There are other customers served by municipalities or electric co-ops. There also are electric companies who choose not to be EEI members.

Having 90 percent membership is pretty high. If you look at other trade associations, their membership is way below that amount. To be a member of EEI you have to be an investor-owned electric utility company and so that’s a pretty tall order right there. More than likely, our member companies were set up way back when regulatory contracting and divvying up service territories was going on. The ground rules were being transformed when we were organized in 1933.

JS: Are there alternative energy methods your organization is associated with or supports?

SK: We advocate a wide variety of generation-you need a balance of energy sources. We can’t rely just on coal, we can’t rely on that for environmental issues. There’s nuclear energy, which has no air pollution but there’s nuclear waste issues to deal with and safety issues so you can’t rely 100 percent on that either. Natural gas seems to be the fuel of choice for a new generation plants, but we’ve seen some volatility there, so you need the balance.

We’re also calling for more research in renewables as well. We believe renewables play a big role in having a balanced energy supply. We’re calling for more research in hydro-plants, we think wind-power is a great investment in some areas, and solar energy and fuel cells. Some of our members are investing in these areas, although it represents a smaller percentage, only about 11 percent.

JS: Are energy conservation programs suddenly popular? Before the energy crisis made major headlines last year, was conservation such a big issue with a school or on college campuses?

SK: There are certain pockets in the country where there are energy conservation programs and a lot of those were set up as part of states’ restructuring laws. We believe that in those pockets-California especially-conservation, or as we call it, "demand response," will play a huge role in the future, ensuring our energy policies and priorities are met. Demand response is our ultimate customers’ ability to respond or control their energy demand. Customers will be relied upon to be a little more responsive in the future. California is a prime example of how people rose to the challenge; that’s what a competitive market is all about.

We’ve noticed an increase in conservation with educational facilities, and some of that can be attributed to budget cuts. But, conservation in general has been more and more of a popular item and schools are very well positioned to contribute to the nation’s conservation effort.

JS: Conversely, do you think people are fairly suspicious of energy companies? You must encounter a much higher degree of suspicion these days, right?

SK: I don’t see that. Conservation is completely separate. Taking a 100-Watt incandescent bulb and replacing it with a 22-Watt compact fluorescent will save money, period. That’s not something to be suspicious about.

When it comes to competition and procurement, fortunately the situation with Enron had very little affect on the energy market. When they collapsed like a deck of cards, the energy market didn’t go into a tailspin, there were no shortages, and the void-and there was a huge void-was filled by other companies. So, there was very little impact from an energy standpoint, but from a financial or capitalization standpoint, the collapse caused a lot of ripples. What I mean by that is, a lot of the utility companies and energy companies rely on capital to put up new plants and that’s a big part of shoring up our energy infrastructure, which we found out the hard way, we need to do. When the Enron situation happened, a lot of people putting up the capital took a hard look at how they provide capital to some of the players out there. From that standpoint, the liquidity of the market has been affected by the Enron situation.

JS: You offer a rather comprehensive, 62-page booklet about managing energy usage within an educational environment. How did this booklet come together?

SK: It’s an educational instructional booklet, not a report. And, even though we represent the electric industry, the booklet was written very objectively and also covers gas and other items.

This booklet isn’t necessarily only intended for the facilities director at a school or college, it’s intended to be passed out by that person to all the school principals or other people who deal with the school infrastructure. In other words, we wrote it in laymen’s terms, made it easy to follow, put in a walk-through energy audit, and created something that could involve students.

We put out our first book in the early 1990s, and this is an updated version. We worked closely with a company called Apogee Interactive, an engineering firm out of Atlanta, and their engineers worked with our engineers here at EEI. They looked at various technologies and looked at areas that really effect education facilities. HVAC was a huge priority, water heating was a huge priority, and lighting was a huge priority.
We determined where the big energy users are and that’s where we focused our attention. In terms of energy use, hot water represents three percent while lighting represents 55 percent.

We came in with the realization that school systems don’t have all the money in the world, so we had to prioritize and come up with recommendations based on that. In other words, we didn’t go in saying, ‘go ahead and build this huge 300,000-square-foot ditch in front of your school and put in a geothermal heat pump.’ We recommended ideas that made the most sense. And, most of those, if you really read the book, are common sense items-if you want to save energy, turn off the lights.

JS: What are some of the smartest things existing school facilities can do to reduce energy use?

SK: If you know that lighting makes up 55 percent of energy usage, what do you do about it? You know that "Exit" signs stay on 24-hours-per-day and I’ll bet that many of those signs still use incandescent bulbs. Replacing that incandescent unit can offer payback savings in under a year and there might even be rebates that make it practically free. A lot of it is just coordination and knowledge.

There have been advances in technology for fluorescent tube lights as well. If you go back only five years, people were using T-12s, which were thicker tubes that can now easily be replaced by thinner, more energy-efficient T-8 tubes. If we’re talking about four-feet-long tubes, we’re maybe talking 40-Watts each with the T-12; T-8 might be 32-Watts. Also, with new fluorescent fixtures, electronic ballasts produce less heat and are a lot more efficient than older ballasts. With lighting producing less heat, there’s less stress on the air conditioning.

With woefully inadequate building envelopes, or schools with broken seals around the windows or in need of caulking work, it may make sense to invest in repairs, which will pay off in the long run. It depends on what the situation is.

JS: With school districts always battling for funds, why are schools now just realizing the importance of energy management?

SK: Schools are part of a big bureaucracy so, coupled with funding and dealing with red tape, it’s extremely difficult to do a lot of these projects. We put this booklet together because it would be fun for the students but we wanted to make it an easy approach where a whole lot of extra capital isn’t necessary to do these projects. The vast majority of the suggestions are common sense items-first and foremost is knowing where you use the electricity and knowing what your big users are; that’s why we have the audits. The basic information can be collected and schools can use that information to find out where they use the electricity, when they use it, and how much they use. Most schools don’t know that.

JS: How different are the needs of a facility within the K-12 range versus a college campus?

SK: The booklet is geared toward K-12 facilities, as well as higher education, but when talking about college campuses, we’re talking about a different animal-what I mean is, they might have a heating and cooling loop, they might have a huge chiller and huge boilers that can produce steam and that’s obviously different than an elementary school or a high school. But, no matter where you get the electricity, you still have to control it.

JS: What do you recommend designers of new schools include in their designs or specify in their plans to aid energy conservation?

SK: Look into lifecycle costs. Definitely compare-this is where your local electric utility can help or at least point you in the right direction-and compare the cost of putting in one chiller versus a more efficient chiller or the cost of installing low-E glass rather than regular glass. Compare what’s standard versus what’s considered the optimal efficiency and figure the payback on that.

But, don’t concentrate only on technology, take a look at the entire infrastructure. Also, consider relying less on lighting fixtures and concentrate on daylighting. The DOE, Department of Energy, offers great programs that designers should use when considering various energy efficient equipment using an entire systems approach.

JS: So, after all the work, what is the expected savings outcome, on average?

SK: It depends. It depends on the changes made and the condition of the school. The sky’s the limit.

JS: If every school enacts these changes and uses less energy, won’t that adversely affect your members?

SK: No, because there’s so much growth in electricity usage in the country at this time. The electric industry is very concerned with the environmental impact so we’re all in favor of smart conservation.