Contracts for projects designed to reduce Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp.’s carbon footprint and decrease energy costs at two local schools have been awarded by school board members.
BCSC school board members approved bids Monday totaling approximately $1 million to install solar panels on the roofs of Northside Middle School and Taylorsville Elementary School and to replace Northside’s building management system.
BCSC officials expect the projects to be completed before next school year and estimate that they would yield a $191,000 reduction in the corporation’s energy costs. The school corporation’s electricity bills totaled $2.18 million last year, according to figures presented during the school board meeting.
Solar panels would also reduce the amount of kilowatt hours, or the amount of energy used in one hour, at each of the two schools by approximately 30%.
“These efforts help us tremendously to save taxpayer dollars,” said BCSC Director of Operations Brett Boezeman.
BCSC officials selected the lowest bid for each of the projects — $850,777 from Solar Energy Solutions to procure and install the solar panels and $229,963 from Jackson Systems for Northside’s building management system, which includes HVAC controls.
It is unclear right now how many solar panels will be installed on the schools’ roofs, Boezeman said.
“We’ll know that once we start having pre-construction meetings with the vendors, which will be here in the next couple of weeks,” he said. “At Northside, (the solar panels) will cover about 80% of the roof, and at Taylorsville, probably about 60% of the roof.”
This money for the solar panels and the HVAC system comes from a $4.85 million bond approved this past June, BCSC officials said.
Other BCSC energy-saving initiatives include an ongoing project to add 10.5 watt LED lighting in all school corporation facilities by 2021, which is projected to decrease annual electricity costs by $290,000, BCSC officials said.
“(Electricity, propane and natural gas) are substantial expenditures that don’t really have a direct impact on teaching and learning, but they are expenses that the district incurs each year,” Boezeman said. “We try to reduce that as much as we can.”
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Visit www.bcsc.k12.in.us/domain/23 to view BCSC’s Energy Sustainability Management Plan.
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