Paul Ilchena(left) talks to Trustee Randy Engel

Seine River School Division is pleased with a decision to retrofit a number of energy systems in the division.  Secretary Treasurer Paul Ilchena says the division did a review of equipment.  "To look at ways to reduce our energy consumption.  We did that over a period of a year and a half since April 2010.  The project was just over $400,000 and the energy savings over a ten year period will be just over $550,000.``

He notes there were numerous changes.  ``We did some management of pumps, some management of fans, fans shut down during unoccupied times, fuel conversions, just a whole number of things across all of our buildings to make energy consumption reductions and in turn, some savings.  Over the next ten years we will continue to maintain the equipment and hopefully those energy savings will continue for years to come.``

Ilchena explains how they are paying for the equipment cost.  ``The money will be paid back over a period of time with the energy savings over the ten year period.  It`s kind of a cost recovery basis where we are reducing our energy consumption, which is a positive thing from the environmental perspective, and we are being able to pay that back with dollar savings from utility costs.``

He says there is one project at Richer School that stands out.  ``We did a heating conversion where we were heating the school with brought in fuel because it didn`t have natural gas service to it.  We converted the equipment to electric heat and that was one of the areas where we were able to recognize significant savings.``