Three high schools in Salt Lake City, Utah, have seen their power consumption decrease by an average of more than 20 percent as part of a green energy effort in the school district.
After five months of the Go Green Earn Green Energy Challenge, East High School, Highland High School, and West High School achieved energy savings equivalent to 1.15 million pounds of carbon dioxide.
The district says on average, the schools saw a 21.18 percent decrease in overall power consumption. A large portion of the savings came from a 12.61 percent drop in peak demand.
“The task was simple: save energy by turning things off when they were not in use,” says the district’s Energy and Resource Manager, Greg Libecci. “By paying attention to heating and cooling schedules, lights, computers, printers, and copiers and turning them off when not in use or when they wouldn’t be used in the near future, we saw significant power savings.”
As a reward, the participating schools were rewarded by receiving 75 percent of the monetary savings seen on their utility bills. East High earned $14,646; Highland High earned $11, 721, and West High earned $12,806.
