2/19 Idaho Energy Education Project

Winter, 2010 Community
Author: Bill Chisholm

Idaho Energy Education Project Report #22 by Bill Chisholm We often speak of the monies being spent on education as an investment in our future. When the Idaho Energy Education Project proposed that $500,000 of the ratepayers’ share of the $23 million Idaho Power received from its 2007 sale of SO2 credits be used for energy education, we used those same words. “Some of these monies should be invested in energy education.” with the notion that there be some future return, some future benefit. The PUC saw merit in the proposal, saying that it appeared to be “in the public interest”. It was a bit of a frustrating process to move the idea forward from a concept to reality, but IEEP believes that thanks to Idaho Power stepping forward to provide leadership and with the help of a diverse and experienced advisory board the investment is starting to pay off. There are two aspects to the project, one is focused on a smaller number of high school students spread across 20 schools in the Idaho Power service area that were trained in energy efficiency assessment and given some tools to conduct assessments in their community’s schools. The second aspect is focused in the elementary schools with 32 schools participating; this project is oriented more towards what energy efficiency in the students’ homes. The high school program was started in October and the results of their assessments and the required reports are just starting to come in. The elementary program is just getting underway, though two pilot programs have been completed. IEEP serves on the advisory committee and has participated in the assessment process with Buhl High School’s ecology club. It is quite a thing to see the seeds one plants sprout and take root. We use energy everyday with little thought as to what the environmental and economic costs really are. Educating students in those realities has the potential to pay big dividends. We have just gotten a glimpse of those dividends. At the latest advisory board meeting, February 11th, two high school teams and one grade school group reported their findings and what they had learned from the program. The grade school students participated in an education program that taught them how to read their meters, compare energy and economic impacts of different types of light bulbs, other energy devices and the “phantom loads” in their homes. They also learned how to navigate the Idaho Power website to look at their family’s electrical use both in real time and over the past year to get a sense of consumption patterns. The four students, two each 4th and 5th graders, spoke of what they learned, how they involved their parents in the process and talked about ways they had saved energy and could do so in the future both in terms of technologies, such as trading out incandescent bulb for CFLs, changing thermostat settings, managing plug loads and just being more aware of how they used energy. The two high school teams that reported were from high schools that had fairly efficient technologies; they had T-8 fluorescent bulbs with electronic ballasts as opposed to the older inefficient T-12s with magnetic ballasts which many schools had. Their findings and recommendations were quite eye opening in terms of the potential energy and thus economic savings. The students found substantial possibilities for savings by better managing the lights and heat in their buildings. Some lights were burning 12 hours a day when the rooms were occupied only 5 hours a day. There were motion sensors that had been disarmed. One team estimated a $24,000 a year savings for the school by just managing the energy use more efficiently and adding some motion sensors. One of the advisory team members, a school teacher whose husband is a school administrator, showed the committee what the school district figured they could save by turning off computers when not in use. While most of the advisory committee members are already believers in the importance and potential of energy education; the impact of these early student reports increased the excitement for the potential for this program as other student assessments come in from schools with less efficient technologies come in. All schools have great potential on the use and management side of the equation. In these challenging economic times, as budgets are cut and dollars have to be spent more wisely, energy efficiency and conservation jump out as both a private and public resource for potential savings. Those saving have both economic and environmental aspects and the real benefits will expand. Energy education is opening the eyes of students, teachers and administrators; the money spent there is truly a good investment. There is great potential for getting more for the education buck as energy education is multi-disciplined in nature, math, science, economics, writing and public speaking are all involved in the process. The spark has grown to become and ember and the first inkling of a flame has started to cast light. Hopefully we will have the wisdom to feed fuel to this fire and soon the heat and light will expand. As an old firefighter and long time activist I am certainly excited by the potential. - Aho All, I like to get responses from folks, so was pleased when one of the recipients of the Idaho Energy Education Project report asked me about "phantom loads". That is the load or energy use that often continues even after the device is supposedly turned off. It may manifest as a little light, but may also indicate some other internal working is still functioning. To stop phantom load, thus saving energy and money one can unplug the device or plug it into a power strip which can then be turned off. Phantom loads are individually fairly small, but the cumulative impact is quite substantial. If you are wondering about such loads you can purchase a device called a kill-a-watt. You plug the kill-a-watt into the wall and the device in question into the kill-a-watt. A kill-a-watt is also useful to understand the amount of energy a device is using while running. You are paying for what you consume, whether you actually are using it or not. Lights and televisions are often left on when no one is in the room or watching the TV. The costs are real both in economic and environmental terms Bill

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