MISD will not continue building environmentally friendly campuses due to features such as the cisterns and solar panels not showing a sufficient return on investment, officials said

MISD has no reports on solar panels, cisterns and windmills energy usage, and hasn't tracked the usage or energy savings for the environmentally friendly campuses

By Brandi Hart
McKinneyUpdate.com editor

McKinney ISD will not continue the practice of incorporating cisterns that collect rain water, windmills and solar panels on campuses to make them more environmentally friendly campus as the district has not seen a significant return on investment on the features associated with the environmentally friendly campuses, such as Roy Lee Walker Elementary School, said Cody Cunningham, Assistant to the MISD Superintendent for Communication.

"We didn't see the benefits that we expected. What we're finding is that you can design a school that is as energy efficient or more energy efficient without all of the significant costs that would be associated with the larger tools that are built in. I think there are two things you have to consider. When you build a school like that (Walker ES) there is an educational component and then there is a conservation or energy savings component. So, you don't build a school like Roy Lee Walker (ES) and ask what are the savings. You also say what are the aspects of the school that are being used to teach environmental awareness to students," Cunningham said.

Walker ES was built in 2000, and is has a windmill, cistern and solar panels, in addition to a "daylighting" feature that harnesses natural light and replaces the artificial lighting in hallways, which saves the campus energy. The cisterns were supposed to collect rain water that would be used in addition to the campuses' regular irrigation system to help irrigate the campus the cistern is located on. The cisterns were supposed to help offset the water. The solar panels are used to help offset the cost of using power from power lines by using power from heat from the sun.

However, the cisterns either do not collect enough water to irrigate the campuses they are used on due to evaporation issues or there is not enough rain fall in the area, Cunningham said.

"The issue has been that we have not seen a significant enough rainfall to utilize those to the level that we would have hoped," Cunningham said. Cunningham said that in order for the MISD to make a significant different in the irrigation cost the cisterns would have to be in a place where it rains significantly more than it rains here. "It's not just tied to how much it rains. It's tied to how hot are the days because when you're dealing with significant evaporation is the challenge we have in Texas is that everybody is used to having green lawns. That is changing and we're seeing xeriscaping now," Cunningham said.

Cunningham said it is his understanding that the solar panels and cisterns are being used at all environmentally friendly campuses, such as Walker ES, Malvern ES, and Vega ES. However, the district has not tracked any of the energy savings or usage of the solar panels and cisterns because they did not create a great deal of return on investment because the technology at the time when they were installed is not near as it what is now, Cunningham said.

"Frankly after we realized after the first couple of years after we built Walker that we weren't going to see the significant gain that we expected we didn't track them. We didn't have any need to track them because it wasn't a significant amount. So we knew that when we built a new school we weren't going to continue with that prototype," Cunningham said.

The research now shows that wind energy, such as with large turbines is more cost efficient.

Windmills on environmentally friendly campuses are also not working and are used as educational tools

One wind energy feature that can visibly be seen on all environmentally friendly campuses is the windmills, Cunningham said were "never supposed to be working windmills." The windmills were in fact supposed to be more aesthetic, Cunningham said. However, Cunningham said that to his knowledge that none of the windmills work on any of the environmentally friendly campuses. He said that the windmills at the campuses are a great example of something that is not a great environmental tool and that they are not being utilized at its capacity, and that MISD has never said that everything works at the schools.

MISD has hired an energy manager to meet state energy efficiency requirements

One thing the district is looking at is the heating and air conditioning systems in the schools, which is one of the things that really impacts energy efficiency in schools, Cunningham said. Depending on when a school was built a HVAC system may not be as environmentally friendly as other campuses, Cunningham said.MISD now has a system that can control the HVAC system in each room in each campus at MISD, which the district also did not have in the late 1990s and 2000 when it first built environmentally friendly schools, Cunningham said.

"You can't compare the HVAC system that is installed in a school like Minshew or Wilmeth a few years ago to one that was installed in Walker in 2000 because they're going to be exponentially more efficient," Cunningham said. He also said that it's hard to compare the energy usage per campus as you have to look at when the campus was built, such as it would be difficult to compare the total energy bill for Walker ES to Glen Oaks ES because or Wilmeth ES because they were not built at the same time and have newer or older HVAC systems.

The district has also hired an energy manager that ensures the energy efficiency on all campuses in the district. One way the energy manager has helped save the district and tax payers' money is that he gathered the energy cost of minifridges that were found in some teacher's classrooms on various campuses. The teacher's lounges and other areas in the school have full size refrigerators and some teachers were bringing in their own personal minfridges to their classrooms, which the district has since banned.

"We'd have anywhere from 50 to 75 minifridges in classrooms on campuses and the comment, which I thought was a classic comment from our energy manager was that you wouldn't believe how much money we were spending on cooling bottled water and salad dressing. The campuses were even authorized due to space issues to be able to bring in another full size refrigerator to the teacher's lounges," Cunningham said. "Collectively, refrigerators cost a lot of money."

The energy manager is responsible for ensuring that all campuses in MISD have a 5 percent energy savings per each year over the next five to six years, which the Texas Legislature passed as a law. The energy requirement applies to all Texas public schools and does not take into consideration of fast growing school districts such as MISD.

The energy manager position did not exist then MISD initially took on the building of environmentally friendly schools in the late 1990s and early 2000, Cunningham said.

Daylighting feature that uses more natural lighting proves to be effective energy savings tool at Walker ES

Cunningham added that he understands why people refer to the Environmental Wal-Mart in McKinney off of US 380 as the Experimental Wal-Mart because the energy saving technology and practices may be just that- an experiment to see how efficient they are.

"I think people look at the Experimental Wal-Mart or a school like Walker and there is a reason why some people sometimes refer to those as an experiment because the intention is good, but we learned some things along the way where some things would cost more money for the construction and weren't worth the investment at the time," Cunningham said.

He added that MISD has saved money on water because the city of McKinney lessened the landscaping requirements for newer campuses in regards to the types of trees and plants that can be planted, and MISD is now able to use more drought tolerant landscaping on the campuses.

New solar panel to be unveiled at Minshew Elementary on June 12

By Brandi Hart
McKinneyUpdate.com editor
Created at 9:30 a.m. on June 12, 2009

Through this initiative, McKinney ISD will have the opportunity to use one of the most high tech green teaching tools available, a photovoltaic (PV) solar electricity system, donated by TXU Energy.

To facilitate this project, TXU Energy is planning a Solar Academy Workshop for McKinney ISD teachers until 3 p.m. on Fri., June 12 in the library at Minshew Elementary. The workshop is planned to educate teachers on the importance of delivering interactive experiences about solar energy.A ribbon cutting ceremony is also planned for 11:45 a.m. on June 12 at the solar panel installation site at Minshew Elementary.

McKinney ISD also has solar panels installed at Walker Elementary School, Malvern Elementary School and other "green" schools.

However, when recently asked for any reports of the usage of the solar panels at Walker ES and how much energy those solar panels save McKinney ISD Assistant to the Superintendent for Communications Cody Cunningham said that McKinney ISD does not have any reports available for the solar panels, or the cistern or windmills that are also included as sustainable or green energy tools at Walker ES and Malvern ES.

Cunningham said that the district will not continue to build environmentally friendly schools as the solar panels, cisterns and windmills did not show a sufficient rate of return on investment. Cunningham said that none of the windmills aren't working at any of the environmentally friendly schools.

Cunningham added that McKinney ISD added green elements to those schools before green was considered cool and when the technology was new. He went on to say that McKinney elementary and secondary schools are some of the greenest and most energy efficient in the state of Texas.However, Cunningham had no reply when asked what other public school districts in Texas are considered to be as green as McKinney ISD, or which schools districts McKinney ISD compares itself to in regards to sustainability and being green.

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