As an Energy Service Provider (ESCO), CMTA’s performance contracting team partners with building owners to achieve long-term energy savings through strategic projects. For Warren County, the state’s fastest-growing school district, an ESCO program established in 2017 significantly advanced their energy initiatives.
Based in Bowling Green, Kentucky’s third-largest city with 140,000 residents, and looking at a projected growth of 90,000 residents over the next 25 years, maintaining high-performing schools is essential to the community’s continual growth. A trailblazer in energy efficiency, WCPS opened the nation’s first zero-energy school in 2009. As the engineer of record for this pioneering project, CMTA helped make their energy goals a reality.
Building on that success, WCPS and CMTA entered a 20-year partnership in 2017 with an energy savings performance contract (ESPC) worth about $30 million. This project encompassed energy upgrades at 28 of the district’s 30 buildings, totaling 2.35 million square feet of instructional space.
WCPS made the most of the early stages of its ESPC with CMTA, completing a number of large projects in a three-year period that ended in 2020. These upgrades included:
- Renovating 654,000 square feet of HVAC equipment across six schools during a nine-week summer break.
- Converting five of the facilities to geothermal heat pump systems and eliminating boilers and chillers.
- Installing dedicated outdoor air systems (DOAS) with individual heat pumps while adding carbon dioxide and humidity sensors to monitor indoor air quality.
- Cleaning and insulating ductwork and installing bi-ionization devices.
- Converting more than 23,000 light fixtures to LED technology and controls and 1,500 plumbing fixtures to low flow.
- Replacing water meters with sewer charges for watering athletic fields with irrigation meters.
- Equipping HVAC systems with web-based controls in 20 buildings to more efficiently control and monitor new and existing equipment.
Funding for the project was gathered through securing several sources including bonds, capital funds and grants in a process called “stacking,” another aspect of projects that ESCOs can help districts with.
The district’s energy savings are also reflected in its energy use intensity (EUI) numbers. Prior to the performance contract, WCPS operated at an EUI of 40.8. A recent measure dropped the school to 24.2—a 41% decrease in energy use—making Warren County Public Schools the most energy efficient district in Kentucky.