Springfield Public Schools R-12 – Leonardo Covis – 2013

Goals

Springfield Public Schools (SPS) asked Leo Covis for his help in developing an energy efficiency plan that district employees could easily follow.

Solutions

By visiting school campuses during the summer, Covis identified wasted electricity use from unused appliances that were left on while buildings were unoccupied. Covis created a checklist for teachers, students and custodial staff to follow that automatically calculates the energy and cost savings from reducing plug loads. If the district unplugged all unnecessary appliances for 12 weeks, it could save over $12,000 and 180,000 kilowatt hours of electricity. Covis also researched alternatives to LEED certification, which added up to 12 percent to the district’s construction costs but did not lead to reduced energy use. Instead, Covis recommended using Green Globes design guides which can be obtained for as little as $1,000. With these guides, the district can design new buildings using lifecycle cost analyses of construction materials and assess the actual energy performance, rather than modeled energy use.

Potential Impact

These projects, along with others recommended by Covis, could save SPS more than $460,000 annually, along with reducing electricity use by over 4 million kWh and carbon dioxide emissions by over 3,900 metric tons.