Consumer Outreach
Co-ops, Schools Conserve Energy
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As co-ops search for ways to meet state-imposed mandates to reduce energy consumption, some are looking to schools, students and parents as partners in energy efficiency.
Carteret-Craven Electric’s Gary Zajac hands out energy efficiency materials and monitors to the “Kilo-Wattchers.” (Photo By: Lisa Galizia)
Currently, 20 states either have requirements or goals for utilities to reduce energy consumption through energy efficiency programs and/or renewable technologies.
Two co-ops, in particular, have taken to classrooms in their communities to contribute their “green” expertise and resources to schools.
In North Carolina, co-ops must meet up to 10 percent of their energy needs through renewable energy resources or energy efficiency measures. Carteret-Craven Electric Co-op, Newport, N.C., is one of four co-ops testing PowerCost Monitors on behalf of GreenCo Solutions, a statewide entity charged with helping co-ops comply with the law.
The co-op capitalized on its “great relationship with local schools” by asking a science and technology teacher if her fifth graders and their parents could test the monitors at home, said Lisa Galizia, communications director.
The result: the fifth-grade “Kilo-Wattchers.” Eighteen parents at Morehead City Elementary School in Camp Glenn agreed to let the co-op install the monitors at their homes to track real-time energy use.
The Kilo-Wattchers analyze their homes’ monthly electricity use and, later this year, will present the findings at school and at the co-op’s annual meeting.
Those findings will be valuable to the co-op. “Part of the pilot program is to see how much the devices, coupled with increased energy education, help consumers save,” Galizia said.
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