UDSD Looks to Make $113k by Agreeing to Curb Energy Use

The hopes to add as much as $113,000 in new revenue over the next few years, should it agree to a contract with energy management company EnerNOC to reduce its electricity consumption.

At its work session Monday evening, the School Board of Directors heard a prosposal from Nate Paist, energy engineer at ARAMARK. Paist told the board that energy companies would pay the district to reduce its large consumption, especially during peak “events” that overload the grid.

“PJM created this program to eliminate blackouts on peak days [such as] when we’re hitting 100 degrees in the summer,” said Paist. “They enroll customers to participate in a program to decrease their load on these days, to prevent blackouts.”

Paist said that the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit originally attempted to establish a consortium program of sorts to gain financial benefit for member schools. But when talks broke down, ARAMARK met with UDSD facilities administrators to look at options.

After considering three providers, Upper Dublin chose to pursue EnerNOC because of an enticing 70/30 revenue split (70 for the district) and an absence of penalties and fees.

“EnerNOC was offering the highest split… with no penalties and fees,” Paist said. “We didn’t want to put the district at risk of having to put money out, this was supposed to be revenue generation, not an investment.”

The payments, issued quarterly, would be split into two groups: capacity payments, and energy payments.

“Capacity payments are basically just paying you to participate, so some people call it a standby payment,” Paist said. “An energy payment is an actual call for reduction, they pay you per hour for that reduction.”

Paist presented a breakdown that showed $104,000 coming from capacity payments and an estimated $9,000 in energy payments over three years. He said that the latter payments are usually based on one “event” a year, typically falling between June and September. Presented with some skepticism from the board, Paist further explained the benefit to energy providers to make these payments.

“Basically the grid operator has two choices. They can either go out and get more generators to increase peak capacity, or they can pay people to reduce their loads on peak days,” Paist said. “It’s cheaper for them to pay people to reduce their loads on peak days than it is to have power plants built... and have capacity sit idle.”

If the district chooses to participate and winds up being asked to curb consumption during a peak day, it would likely mean shutting off all lights and air conditioning in participating buildings, as well as other systems, Paist said.

However, the district could also refuse to lower its energy on peak days without penalty, Paist said, using a September school day as an example. In addition, the school would only sign an initial one-year contract, with options to re-up over the next two.

Board member Michael Resnick posed several questions on what would occur during peak days.

“If we turned off our air-conditioning, and I’m assuming we can do that without affecting critical areas like where computers are… when we are off-peak, would we be using [extra] energy to re-establish the temperature?” Resnick asked.

“Maybe by a small amount, but the payments from this program would far exceed the cost of the energy to re-cool the building back to the set mark,” Paist answered.

Additional benefits would come from energy meters being placed on participating buildings, helping to curtail energy usage and provide savings. Paist said that every school would get free meters, with the exception of Jarrettown and Thomas Fitzwater Elementary Schools, which do not use enough power to qualify for the program.

“If we have those meters, we can actually [monitor] things like shutting down lights at schools and seeing what the impact was,” said board president Joseph Chmielewski. “It will give the sustainability committees in the schools much better control over our activities.”

According to administrators, the contract with EnerNOC is currently with the district’s solicitor for review, and will likely appear before the board at its legislative meeting next Monday, February 13.