Laguna Beach Unified and Scheider Electric Working Together for Classroom Comfort

LAGUNA BEACH, CA — Thurston Middle School and Laguna Beach High School experienced HVAC challenges, resulting in student and teacher discomfort. Now, the Laguna Beach Unified School District and Schneider Electric, the global specialist in energy management and automation, have partnered on construction of a district-wide energy efficiency project.

The goal is to improve comfort and efficiency at all sites and will have a positive environmental impact. Once completed, the district will reduce the annual electricity spend by 28 percent, saving $115,000 each year that can be reinvested back into the classroom.

How will they do it?

• district-wide lighting system retrofit, which will replace all bulbs with LEDs.
• faulty mechanical units will be replaced
• new control systems will be installed to provide local control of zoned areas and improve occupant comfort.

The project will restore the existing local solar array back to functionality to create additional energy savings for the district.

Working with Schneider Electric, the district secured funding to implement upgrades with little upfront cost. The district will optimize $500,000 in grant funding from the California Energy Commission’s Proposition 39 Clean Energy Jobs Act, with additional funding provided through the savings recovery and reinvestment program to implement critical infrastructure upgrades.

“Our student and staff comfort is essential to the success of our school district and is a top priority for our leadership team,” said William Landsiedel, school board president of LBUSD.

“Experience has shown that proper lighting, heating and air conditioning aids learning and teaching. Our ten year maintenance plan calls for air conditioning of the Artists’ Theater, which is used for ACT/SAT testing, and new cooling systems for our gyms. These facilities are used for public meetings and school events such as college and career recruiting. Schneider Electric not only developed a plan to optimize Proposition 39 funding for this project, they also leveraged that funding along with an innovative energy efficiency program to tackle deferred maintenance projects. With this funding, we can improve our learning environments and save valuable taxpayer dollars to reinvest directly into the education of our students. It’s a win for everyone.”

This project will have a substantial environmental impact on the community by removing over 138 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere, which is equivalent to planting 5,538 new trees.

“Solving energy and infrastructure challenges is oftentimes viewed as a financial and logistical nightmare for K-12 schools,” said Tammy Fulop, vice president of Schneider Electric. “We’re thrilled to partner with LBUSD on this project to demonstrate how schools can use unique funding models to create a positive and lasting impact on their communities. We’ve even planned for construction to occur when classrooms are unoccupied – limiting the overall disruption to the district.”

In 2012, the citizens of California voted to approve Proposition 39 to close tax loopholes and invest $2.5 billion of that new revenue into energy efficiency improvements in K-12 and Community College buildings. In today’s reality of tighter budgets and shrinking resources, cash-strapped schools have found improving the performance of their school facilities one of the only ways to free up funds for critical expenses such as maintaining and improving building infrastructure, hiring and retaining teachers, and keeping up with the demand for information technology investments for its students.

In the past 23 years, Schneider Electric has successfully implemented more than 575 ESPC projects across the nation, saving clients nearly $2 billion. This project delivery method helps publicly funded entities make capital improvements over longer payback periods and offers many long-term benefits such as improved facility efficiency, occupant comfort, financial management and environmental protection.

For more information on Schneider Electric’s approach to performance contracting, please visit www.enable.schneider-electric....