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.
Kuehner also checks the buildings during the night and holidays, using laser technology to check temperature and a HOBO data logger to check heating, cooling, lighting and dew points. He said the ideal benchmarks for the district are 68 to 72 degrees when heating the buildings and 74 to 78 degrees during the summertime. He said the buildings are brought down to 60 degrees when vacant, though 55 degrees would be even better.
“We don’t need to keep the building warm for dust and the things that are in here,” he said.
In regard to lighting, Kuehner explained the difference between regular, common incandescent light bulbs and the newer, more energy-efficient compact fluorescent lights (CFL). Both give off the same amount of light but a regular 60-watt bulb draws 20 watts of electricity while a CFL would draw about 13 watts.
He also mentioned newer light-emitting diodes (LED) and light-emitting crystal (LEC) technology.
He said that if a set of Christmas lights was on for six hours a day for 30 days, the cost would be $30 for a regular bulb, $20 for a nightlight-type bulb, but only $4 for mini lights or 43 cents for LEDs.
Kuehner also briefly mentioned pollution that results from carbon dioxide, and how North Brunswick monitors the district’s carbon footprint. He said by lessening energy, natural gas and electricity use in the schools, the town has basically taken 100 cars off the road, which is equivalent to having planted 2,500 trees.
Kuehner’s final assignment for the students was for them to go home and inform their parents about GreenQuest, a free online database that calculates monthly energy use based on energy bills. Questions include: how much is spent annually on utilities; total energy use; how the weather has affected usage; whether efforts to conserve energy are working; and if neighbors sign up, how each house compares to the others.
“Then everybody’s electric costs go down, and gas costs, and the amount of energy [used] goes down,” he said.
For more information, visit www.mygreenquest. com/northbrunswicknj or email Kuehner at RKuehner@mail.nbt schools.org.