Schools
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Balancing the budget. M any schools are having to do more and more, on less and less. Overall budgets are dropping in some areas, even though attendance and needs are increasing. As a result, school boards are looking at alternate ways of reducing costs – and many are starting to consider renewable energy sources. When École du Tournant (Saint-Constant, Québec) was being designed, the school board’s director of the technical services was approaching retirement. As his legacy, he wanted to create a “green” school that would use renewable energy sources wisely, helping the environment while helping to balance the budget. Completed in 2002, this alternative type school (28,000 ft2) has won numerous awards, including an AHSRAE award for ecological excellence. By combining solar panels, a geothermal system, heat collectors and intelligent lighting, this model building consumes only onequarter the energy of a conventional school, without releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Laurier Nichols, lead consultant from Dessau Soprin, the engineering and consulting firm that produced the mechanical design for this school, says, “One of the major constraints, as is the case with most schools, was the standard budget for construction. So, they didn’t want too many fancy features, whether PV or wind power, or anything else, because it would have been too expensive and the costs would not have justified their use – the payback wouldn’t have been great enough to include them. Some of the energy savings devices also required architectural features (chimneys, etc.) to make the other technologies work. Nothing special was needed with SolarWall®. We just got the energy and cost savings. The SolarWall system results in 40,000 - 50,000 kWh savings per year. And this project is repeatable – you could do the same project with respect to standard budget for any school.” “Boat” look banished, books bought and gym heated for free. In British Columbia, the Coquitlam School Board’s decision to choose SolarWall had as much to do with aesthetics as it did with savings. Jim Domina, Manager of Projects explains, “The area is more prone to major earthquakes than others, so we had to do a seismic upgrade to the high school gymnasium. At the same time we built a new gym. We put a fiberglass wrap on the entire building. When it was first put on the brick, the school looked like the inside of a boat. It looked awful. The wrap had to be protected from UV rays, so I got the idea to put metal paneling on it. Then someone told me about SolarWall. I checked it out and saw that it made sense and that it would look the same as regular metal panels. So now I use the SolarWall [system] to preheat the intake air which heats the new gym. It’s great; we’ve added a great big double gym, but our energy costs have remained the same!” Other schools share similar cost savings stories, but for many educators and school trustees, the best thing about saving money on energy costs is that it frees up funds for other, “more interesting” educational purchases – or to help them keep on extra teachers. Support for Solar Schools. The commitment to create solar-fueled schools is gaining strength and in many places around the world there are grants and rebate programs to help offset the cost of incorporating SolarWall panels into a new or retrofit design. For schools taking advantage of these programs, the savings can start even sooner. Staying awake in school. Teachers already know that kids aren’t always alert and attentive in class – and as the 3:30 bell gets closer SCHOOLS

Canada Conserval Engineering Inc. 200 Wildcat Road, Toronto, ON M3J 2N5 T: 416.661.7057 F: 416.661.7146 E: info@solarwall.com W: www.solarwall.com U.S.A. Conserval Systems Inc. 4242 Ridge Lea Rd., Suite 28, Buffalo, New York 14226 T: 716.835.4903 F: 716.835.4904 E: solarwallUSA@solarwall.com W: www.solarwall.com and closer, the squirming, chatting and daydreaming can reach unbearable levels. In many schools, there’s a very good reason for this – one that has nothing to do with the caliber of classroom content. When air flow and ventilation fall below optimal levels, it can lead to...