ERS, Inc. and the Tennessee Department of Education Launch a $90 Million Energy Efficient Schools Initiative

NASHVILLE, Tenn., Feb. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- When Tennessee legislators found excess lottery monies earmarked for state educational scholarships, they authorized another educational use for the funds -- the development and implementation of a comprehensive energy efficiency program for Tennessee schools. Utilizing a $90 million transfer from the Lottery for Education reserve accounts, ERS, a progressive energy engineering firm, teamed up with the Tennessee Department of Education's Energy Efficient Schools Council (EESC) and Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) to develop the Energy Efficient Schools Initiative (EESI), authorized to provide grants and loans to Tennessee school systems for projects that meet energy efficient design and technology guidelines for school facilities.

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Consisting of both prescriptive and custom measures for lighting, HVAC, motors and drives, and high performance kitchen equipment in schools, the EESI program launched in July, 2009 and is, according to Chris Smith, Regional Director for ERS, "among the most aggressive, comprehensive, and advanced efficient schools program in the country." The program has proven a success in helping cash-strapped schools update aging infrastructure in the most efficient way possible. In fact, within the past seven months, the program has approved $8.5 million of incentives. According to Ron Graham, Executive Director of EESI, "The rapid success would not have been possible without the experience, knowledge, and excellent service that ERS has provided."

In developing the program, ERS drew on its considerable energy efficiency program planning and implementation experience including a commercial, industrial, and residential program for the Maine PUC called Efficiency Maine and a new prescriptive commercial/industrial gas and electric program for NYSERDA targeting all market segments in New York State. Researching such factors as local market conditions, cost-effectiveness, emerging technologies, and national and regional efficiency standards, ERS developed minimum efficiencies and requirements for each technology and determined incentive levels through cost and energy economics analysis.

Criteria used in the analysis included benefit/cost ratio, payback period, and the incentive as a percentage of project cost. The benefit/cost ratio was determined by a Total Resource Cost (TRC) test, which evaluated each measure's societal benefits. A portfolio of measures were developed in collaboration with Tennessee's EESC and TAC, finalized into a comprehensive program, and rolled out to the school systems. The program has been successful in providing financial assistance in the form of grants to 50 school districts (hundreds of school facilities) and provides critical incentives to move school districts to action on efficiency upgrades. EESI is finalizing steps to offer loans in addition to the grants.

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SOURCE ERS, Inc.