{"id":72799,"date":"2017-01-03T22:30:11","date_gmt":"2017-01-04T05:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/m-chs-gets-high-ranking-for-energy-efficiency\/"},"modified":"2017-01-04T05:30:11","modified_gmt":"2017-01-04T05:30:11","slug":"m-chs-gets-high-ranking-for-energy-efficiency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/m-chs-gets-high-ranking-for-energy-efficiency\/","title":{"rendered":"M-CHS gets high ranking for energy efficiency"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The
The dignitaries cut a ribbon, officially opening the new Montezuma-Cortez High School in 2015. The school recently earned a high rating for energy efficiency from Energy Star.<\/span>The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The rating was based on energy usage at the school over the course of its first full year in operation, from October 2015-2016, and was compared with other K-12 schools of a similar size in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cM-CHS is better-performing than 89 percent of schools in the country in terms of energy usage,\u201d Re-1 District owner\u2019s representative Jim Ketter told school board members at a meeting on Dec. 21.<\/p>\n

District owners representative Peter Robinson said one that a requirement of the state department of education BEST grant, which partially funded the construction of the school, was to pursue the Energy Star certification. The goal was to score 75 or higher, he said.<\/p>\n

Robinson said he expects a formal award from Energy Star within a month, including a sticker that will go on the door of the school. Energy Star has yet to process the school\u2019s rating and verify it.<\/p>\n

The 159,300-square-foot building uses about 30 kBtu (30,000 British thermal units) per square foot per year. By comparison, the average school in the country uses approximately 80 kBtu per square foot per year, Ketter said. The school used about 4.56 million kBTUs of electricity during the year. About 85 percent of that was generated from the city\u2019s electrical grid. Nine percent was generated from natural gas, and five percent was from solar panels on the roof of the school.<\/p>\n

About 85 percent of the school\u2019s energy use was generated from the city\u2019s electrical grid. Nine percent was generated from natural gas, and 5 percent was from solar panels on the school\u2019s roof. Solar panels on the roof of the school generated $7,811 worth of electricity during that year, according to Robinson\u2019s report.<\/p>\n

Energy Star communications representative Lauren Hodges said the rating program takes into account building size, operating hours, weather, the number of computers and walk-in freezers and other factors. Scores also are normalized depending on criteria such as climate conditions and whether the school is a high school, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we were developing a model, we found that these were drivers in energy use,\u201d Hodges said. \u201cWhen accounting for all these differences, we can compare apples to apples.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are almost 30,000 Energy Star-certified buildings in the country, and about 9,600 of those are K-12 schools, Hodges said. There are 343 certified schools in Colorado, but the closest to Cortez is in Grand Junction, she said. M-CHS would be the first certified Energy Star school in Southwest Colorado.<\/p>\n

Although M-CHS was designed to be efficient, Energy Star doesn\u2019t take that into consideration when devising a rating, Hodges said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes we see buildings are designed to be efficient but in practice they don\u2019t live up to expectations,\u201d Hodges said. \u201cIt\u2019s great to see a school with a score of 89. It shows the people operating the school know what they\u2019re doing and they\u2019re doing a great job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Utilities at the school cost about 86 cents per square foot. Electrical HVAC accounted for 49 percent of the school\u2019s usage, while electric plug loads accounted for 33 percent, lighting was 17 percent and gas heating was 1 percent.<\/p>\n

The school used about 4.2 million gallons of water from domestic and irrigation sources during that year, according to Robinson\u2019s report.<\/p>\n

Ketter commended board members for opting to keep a high-efficiency energy system as a top priority in design plans for the new high school. Mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems in the building cost about $6-8 million and included high-efficiency options for infrastructure such as windows and insulation, he said.<\/p>\n

Robinson said he wasn\u2019t aware of any other buildings in Montezuma County that are Energy Star-certified.<\/p>\n

jacobk@the-journal.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

dignitaries cut a ribbon, officially opening the new Montezuma-Cortez High School in 2015. The school recently earned a high rating for energy efficiency from Energy Star.The Journal The rating was based on energy usage at the school over the course of its first full year in operation, from October 2015-2016, and was compared with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,13,60,36,216],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-72799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-montezuma-county","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-montezuma-cortez-school-district-re-1"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72799"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72799\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72799"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=72799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}