The Green Path for Schools and Municipalities

© 2008 by Reynold Hendrickson, StarPak Group

The average educational or municipal pays $2-3 per square foot each year directly on energy:

  • $1.35 to 1.80/sf/yr in electricity (lighting and cooling)
  • $0.60 to 0.80/sf/yr in heating and water heating fuels
  • $0.30 to 0.40/sf/yr in water/sewer charges

Many institutions pay far more than that—museums or recreational facilities with long operating hours, intensive equipment usage, or processes requiring large amounts of heat.

In addition, the entire spending budget of educational and municipal institutions is (and has been for the last 40 years) exposed to inflation caused by global energy market fluctuations and to fundamental limits on fossil fuel availability. After all, it takes fossil fuel energy to make, package, and transport virtually every product we use.

The bigger the problem, the more obvious the solution.

Each school, city, or state building, is on a path to sustainability in the 21st century, whether intended or not. We see the future on Israeli rooftops and Danish coastlines. The future is clearly renewable— our grandchildren will live in a world largely powered by natural sources: wind, sun, waves, and bio-fuels.

Our goal at StarPak Group is to help plan your path toward sustainability … on your terms. Working together, we can achieve substantial liberation from both global oil dependency and the increasingly costly offerings of utility companies.

Our name for this liberating process is The Green Path©. It’s a plan that moves toward energy independence, but does not ‘ditch dependency’ in a single step. Instead, we believe it is wisest to take each step on The Green Path only when strongly indicated by evidence of:

  • superior returns on investment, plus
  • grants and low or zero interest loans to fund the a large part of the work, plus
  • increases in occupant comfort, plus
  • independence from both foreign oil and utility companies
  • the opportunity to educate students and the general public

Step I

The first Green Path step is to analyze your energy situation, using our 32 years of experience in renewables with almost 10,000 renewable and high-efficiency customers. We invite those ‘just starting to look’ to gather their energy bills, building plans, and digital photos, and come to a Green Path Seminar. These are held:

  • Once or more a month at our showroom in Ann Arbor, Michigan
  • In cases where clusters of buildings can be studied, at the place and time of your choosing. (Examples: school board meetings, city facilities planning events.) Here, our skilled staff organizes charettes where all stakeholders attend, magic markers in hand, and collaborate with our planners to lay out an optimum plan.

Attendees will share ideas with our skilled presenters, and compare notes on building their own Green Plan. For a nominal charge, those who are ready for an in-depth analysis can invite StarPak to perform an on-site energy audit and receive a detailed assessment report. This report, good for the life of the building, is a valuable asset to both current occupants and future buyers. (StarPak will usually waive these charges if it performs any work pursuant to the audit.)

Step II

The next Green Path step consists of implementing physical improvements based on proven, mature technologies that produce predictably strong returns on investment and increases in occupant comfort. For example:

  1. Energy efficiency measures—LED and CFL lighting, key insulation categories (duct, pipe, window insulation as well as for walls and ceilings), water conservation and reclamation… plus 98-99% efficient furnaces where indicated.
  2. Solar thermal systems—proven by the tens of millions in Japan, Israel, Brazil, Germany, Denmark, Canada, and the USA—for building heating, water heating, pool and spa heating, and even desiccant-dehumidification cooling of buildings. In commercial buildings, air pre-heating with solar and heat reclamation are especially advantageous.
  3. Targeted solar electric lighting and power systems (often referred to as photovoltaics or PV) for attic cooling, day lighting of windowless or dark areas, landscape and parking lot lighting, and powering of DC pumps and blowers. In off-grid areas more extensive PV systems might make very good sense.
  4. Energy monitoring, management, and control. Powerful internet-protocol (IP) hardware/software—of the same type used by Google to control and enhance its world headquarters—can track and control all key energy usage.

These proven steps, all available from StarPak, noticeably increase occupant comfort; save a typical institution $1.00, $1.25 or more per square foot per year; are fundable from the new Stimulus Plan and Zero Interest Bond funds; plus often attract the attention of willing donors. Better yet, steadily increasing year-over-year after-tax returns on investment of 20% or better are obtained.

For schools and institutions, StarPak considers as a Step II action any that provide comparably high returns and/or immediate positive operating cash flow that can contribute to budgets. Hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars per year are routinely saved in larger buildings, clusters, and school districts in this way.

Step III

This step includes building-scale PV (solar electricity production), onsite wind generation, and wood/cellulosic combined power and heat (CHP). Such projects are very often indicated by our detailed site assessments.

  1. PV will continue to enjoy dramatic breakthroughs in simplification and lowered cost, due to an imminent wave of ‘thin film’ rollouts. (Thin film is virtual printing of electric cell circuitry onto coils of thin metal substrate.) We anticipate that these developments will drive costs down to a range in which it will become an attractive investment. Generous Federal programs will remain in place through 2012 for PV.
  2. Though less often an applicable solution, on-site wind generation is also benefiting from a manufacturing ramp up that will help reduce costs.
  3. Wood and cellulosic systems are used extensively in Europe together with solar thermal for building heating and water heating. These are called “combi-systems.” In the near future, advanced building-scale systems will also be able to produce electricity, combining production of heat and power. Wood/cellulosic CHP is a perfect match with solar thermal and PV.
  4. Wastewater and waste heat reclamation are proven and simple today, and should also become far more cost-effective in the near future.

The result of these simple Green Path steps is that school and municipal buildings can become dramatically more comfortable and substantially independent of foreign oil and utility price hikes, enjoying both strong increases in the value and excellent returns on investment. Our staff and network of partners brings 31 years of renewables experience, with over 8,000 renewable and high-efficiency customers in Michigan alone. They include:

  • Architect Damian Farrell and his Design Group for new sustainable buildings and tasteful architectural retrofits. They can help you create a nearly 100% green facility.
  • Tom Esper, PE, structural and civil engineer with extensive experience supervising steel construction for large-scale projects.
  • Robert Frank, a certified energy auditor with over 12,000 audits completed.
  • David Lewis, new urbanist architect with projects from Los Angeles to Cleveland.
  • Boiler and commercial HVAC experts Hartford & Ratliff.
  • On-call carpentry and electrical crews.
  • Top energy management/intelligent building system middleware integrators Ken Rorick and Jon Engelbert.

To Learn More:

Contact StarPak Group:
3003 Miller Rd.
Ann Arbor, MI
48103-2122
Phone: (734) 222-3000
Fax: (734) 222-3638
www.starpakgroup.com