Sustainable Insights          

BY JENNIFER AMATO

NORTH BRUNSWICK — Students at John Adams Elementary School were “energized” last week even though they had to stay after school.

Members of the fourth-grade gifted and talented program listened to a presentation Jan. 6 by Ray Kuehner, an energy specialist for the North Brunswick school district.

Within the district, Kuehner said heating, cooling, electric and gas costs total about $3 million a year.

“It’s a lot of money. A lot of money,” he said.

However, he said the district is taking measures to save energy and money. By doing “simple things,” he said, about $500,000 has already been saved.

“We are able to put it back into our education budget to buy books and other things you guys need to learn,” he said.

One important change within the district has been shutting off lights when a room is empty. Another is opening shades to let in light and warmth when the weather is cold, and shutting them to block out the cold or extreme summer heat.

In addition, the lights have been disconnected on the 20 vending machines at Linwood Middle School and North Brunswick Township High School, saving about $100 per machine per year, or about $2,000 total.

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A recent article in Building Operating Management Magazine discusses the tremendous energy savings opportunities that exist in small buildings (less than 100,000 square feet). In particular, it mentions HVAC and lighting as the two areas that comprise the majority of energy use and represent the biggest opportunities for energy savings.

Here at Onset, we’re using our own energy monitoring products to monitor electricity consumption and other parameters in our 40,000 square foot facility on Cape Cod. In particular, we’re tracking kilowatt hours and air temperature in various sections of the buildings, and in a very short period of time we’ve learned a tremendous amount about our own energy usage patterns.

Live data from one of the monitoring systems can be accessed here.