In Warren County, Kentucky, the school district has saved more than $2 million in utility costs since retrofitting five schools with solar panels and introducing other energy efficiency measures. In Jamestown, Rhode Island, installing solar panels at two schools saves the district more than $60,000 per year. After Colorado’s Boulder Valley School District upgraded a middle school, energy costs dropped by about $10,000 a year.
These examples come from a new report commissioned by the Building Power Resource Center, a group that supports climate action. Although investing in green buildings is good for the environment, the report says it’s also good financially, freeing up money that schools can use for teachers, books and other needs.
And the report says that even though the Trump administration has eliminated many federal programs that incentivized schools to invest in greener buildings and vehicles, there are still places to turn for help with up-front capital for clean energy projects — namely state programs. However, due to political developments, projects are more likely to start than a few years ago.
“School districts across the country are looking for ways to save money, and this seems like a really good strategy to consider,” said David R. Eichenthal, the study’s author and former Biden administration official who is now a visiting scholar at the Center for Urban Research at the City University of New York. “I have been responsible for the finances of a local government, and there are few expressions that are more pleasing to the ears than “recurring operating savings”.
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For the Putnam Valley Central School District, about 50 miles north of Manhattan, these types of savings have been accumulating for several decades. In 1998, the district converted a high school from inefficient electric baseboard heating to geothermal energy, a renewable resource that harnesses heat from the Earth’s crust.
The project was financed through what’s called an energy performance contract: The district received a bond to cover the upfront costs of geothermal construction, which it repaid through savings generated by swapping the less efficient energy source for a more efficient source, said David Spittal, the district’s operations and transportation director.
In 2000, the district built a new high school entirely dependent on geothermal energy, turning itself into a pot of state money. construction assistance for school capital improvement projects – to help cover initial costs. When Spittal joined in 2017, the district took on another, smaller decarbonization project at the elementary school, again using an energy performance contract. Last year, voters approved a bond to fully convert the elementary school to geothermal, and state construction aid will cover part of the cost.
In the report, Eichenthal calculated that geothermal at the middle school saved the district about $1.5 million in energy costs. Spittal estimates that projected savings from all of the District’s green energy investments will be significantly higher: about $18 million between 2019 and 2039.
“If we hadn’t done it, we would have been in trouble,” Spittal said. “We would either have to raise taxes or lose teachers and increase class sizes. »
The federal retreat from climate action has complicated plans to finance such projects: New York state construction aid reduced Putnam Valley’s upfront costs for the latest geothermal project by two-thirds, but they would have been almost zero if the District had tapped clean energy tax credits created by the Biden-era inflation reduction law, Spittal said. The school district chose not to discuss this option with voters, due to the uncertain future of the tax credits; last year, Congress and the Trump administration rescinded several (although credits for geothermal remain largely intact).
Yet public programs to help school districts decarbonize continue to exist, in both red and blue states. New York, Maryland and Massachusetts have grant programs for cleaner, green schools. In Texas, the LoanSTAR revolving loan program funds clean energy projects on state-supported buildings, including school districts; loans are repaid using savings made through the projects. Minnesota and Pennsylvania have programs to help schools adopt solar energy, Ohio has one for energy efficiency, and Colorado offers grants for geothermal energy, among other examples.
Related: Students, schools rush to save clean energy projects in face of Trump deadline
West Virginia is one of more than two dozen states to green light power purchase agreements, which typically allow school districts and other tax-exempt organizations to lend their space for solar projects. The Wayne County School District worked with Solar Holler, a solar energy company, to build solar panels at 15 of its schools. The project is expected to save the school district about $200,000 in annual energy costs, said Todd Alexander, the district’s superintendent.
While that doesn’t represent a huge savings for a district the size of Wayne County, the 12th largest in the state, it still equates to the salaries of about two teachers, Alexander said. And the project cost the district nothing because all expenses were borne by Solar Holler, including federal incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act and a private sector agreement known as the Renewable Energy Certificate. As part of the agreement, companies seeking to meet climate decarbonization goals were matched with the Ever.green company to help cover part of the costs of the Solar Holler project.
“It was a no-brainer,” Alexander said.
Yet even with net financial savings, there has been a political backlash. State Sen. Craig Hart, who represents part of Wayne County, introduced a bill to limit power purchase agreements, arguing they undercut the price of coal and politicize schools. “I don’t think a school is a good place to make a political statement about your public services and so on,” he said during a committee hearing. according to the Mountain State Spotlight News Agency. Lawmakers scrapped the bill, but new efforts to limit wind and solar power cropped up in the state Legislature this year.
Despite the obstacles, Dan Conant, founder and CEO of Solar Holler, said soaring electricity prices are fueling interest in solar energy. “Everything will be fine without the (federal) incentives,” he said. “Solar power is simply cheaper than what people get from the public power grid. »
Eichenthal, the report’s author, said he hopes that as districts get better at tracking their savings and sharing those stories, green investments will continue to gain momentum.
“Funding is available for school districts that want to do this. There is a long history of state involvement in this area,” he said. “And there’s now a series of strong case studies where we no longer have to just say, ‘Well, we think you’re going to save money.’ We can say, “Here are the dollars and cents. »
Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, via Signal at CarolineP.83 or by email at preston@hechingerreport.org.
This story about green schoolswas produced by The Hechinger reportan independent, nonprofit news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Register for Hechinger’s climate change newsletter.
The article Green Schools = Big Savings appears first in the Hechinger Report.
