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Using Energy to Address School Facility Needs in Philadelphia

(Lankenau High School Principal, Mr. J Levinson, SDP Superintendent, Dr. Hite, PEA Executive Director Emily Schapira)

(Lankenau High School Principal,  Joshua Levinson, SDP Superintendent, Dr. Hite, PEA Executive Director, Emily Schapira)

School District of Philadelphia Energy Opportunity Assessment

On Monday, March 20, 2017 the Philadelphia School District, City Council, and the Philadelphia Energy Authority hosted a press conference at Lankenau Environmental Science Magnet High School to announce a commitment to develop up to $345 million in energy efficiency projects. Philadelphia Energy Authority Executive Director, Emily Schapira stated “The School District of Philadelphia is taking a major step forward for sustainability, but perhaps most importantly, they are uncovering new ways to fund much-needed capital work.  This means hundreds of millions of additional dollars to create better teaching and learning environments for over 130,000 children in our city, at no additional cost to taxpayers.”

At the event, the Philadelphia Energy Authority (PEA) released “Opportunity Assessment: Using Energy Performance Contracting to Address School Facility Needs in Philadelphia”, a white paper providing an initial assessment of the size of the opportunity and the types of capital needs that could be addressed using energy savings.  PEA determined that Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) could use energy savings to finance much-needed capital projects (e.g. boilers, windows, insulation, lighting, HVAC, etc.). This work will result in up to $600 million in savings over 20 years, and will not require any out-of-pocket expense over and above SDP’s existing utilities budget. The complete whitepaper is available HERE.

The School District of Philadelphia also announced an energy performance contracting (EPC) pilot project, including energy conservation measures, at three (3) K-12 schools. These projects are being developed as a pilot to determine the viability of energy projects across over 200 schools in the future. The School District of Philadelphia is requesting proposals from qualified engineering firms who can provide energy performance engineering (EPE) services or owner’s representative companies or any company that feels as though they can satisfy this scope as the School District moves forward with an Energy Performance Contract (EPC) through the PA Guaranteed Energy Savings Act (GESA). The School District’s Energy Performance Engineering Services RFP is available HERE.

The full video of the press conference is available below.

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