This school district is so badly run they petitioned a court to force a successful bordering county school district to merge with the failing Memphis City district.
They are already out spending the county on a per student basis by nearly 30%, but it seems pie in the sky no ROI projects like this are wasting money while student performance has dropped.
I will bet the 5% savings per year probably will not pay for the software or support costs in the 5 years of the contract.
This company involved also has a shaky track record. The COO of the company resigned in February 2011 under federal investigation for market manipulation and stock fraud. This is the second investigation in 3 years. The first in 2008 led to an out of court settlement.
The Memphis City Schools district has tapped an application from software developer EnerNOC to manage and reduce its energy consumption across 25 different locations. The initial contract period, which is five years long, is expected to produce an estimated 5 percent in energy reductions across the systems.
The software, called EfficiencySMART, focuses on reduction through insight. It will provide information about ongoing usage and can help school administrators manage energy spikes across the system, avoid charges during peak demand events, and undertake energy efficiency measures. The software focuses on reducing the consumption of equipment, lighting and technology that is already in place rather than new energy technologies. So it is an approach that can be embraced by organizations that don’t have budgets for capital equipment expenditures.
Memphis City Schools was an existing company that uses EnerNOC’s DemandSMART demand-response services. Those services allow organizations to be alerted about peak usage conditions; they can opt to reduce their electricity consumption during those periods, which means they will receive some consideration from the utility company.
Noted Bobby Barlow, energy manager for the urban school district:
“By working with EnerNOC, we can manage and reduce our energy use more effectively and create cost savings in the process. Those savings can then be applied directly back to our academic programs and operations.”
It’s another great example of a way that public schools can work around the impact of budget cuts, increasing academic resources while becoming more operationally efficient. If you have read anything about the school budget situation in Memphis, it is pretty dire. That’s not really the point of this story, but by taking measures like this one, the district can help lessen the impact when it doesn’t get the money it has been promised.
Related posts:
- New York schools embrace energy-savings curriculum
- Illinois schools create cloud cooperative to extend technology resources
- U.S. school districts need a course in energy efficiency 101
- Pennsylvania school gets high marks for energy-saving plan
- IBM, New York university team on energy management for schools
