Terracon Consultants, Inc.
Dallas, TX 75247
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Energy Management Consulting- Round Rock Independent School District
Project Information
- Project Location:
- Round Rock, TX
- Status:
- Completed
- Structure Type:
- Education (K-12)
References
- Owner:
- Architect:
- General Contractor:
Scope Of Work
The Round Rock Independent School District initially requested assistance in 2001, from ESA, a Terracon Company, to provide an energy efficiency analysis, along with potential energy and cost saving recommendations for the district’s campuses. Rising utility costs, a significant growth in student population ,and increased building area was impacting the District’s budget. The relationship between RRISD and ESA has spanned a decade and during that time, ESA has designed and managed multiple energy savings projects, including lighting, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), the controls system, fire/security, and electrical upgrades. Some of these projects were installed through funding with the State Energy Conservation Office (SECO) LoanSTAR program. One of the LoanSTAR projects involved renovating the controls systems for 11 campuses constructed during the time period from 1971-1986, and covered 1.5 million square feet. ESA has assisted RRISD with the successful negotiation of electric utility rates when Texas deregulated portions of the electric utility industry. In addition to negotiating electric rates from Retail Electric Providers, ESA evaluated a proposal for RRISD to purchase renewable wind energy through the City of Austin GreenChoice Program for all schools within the City of Austin utility service area for 10 years. A surcharge for the purchase of wind energy was compared to projected gas cost adjustment factors that the surcharge replaced and it was determined that the wind energy proposal would likely make purchasing renewable energy less expensive than the traditional fossil fuel generated electricity in a relatively short period of time. With the gas price increase experienced over the subsequent years, the simple payback for this contract was realized within three years. ESA has been able to identify and implement numerous energy cost reduction measures, resulting in energy cost savings of more than $8 million to date.
