Energy Improvements Made to Medford’s Schools

Welcome back from the City’s Office of Energy & Environment and the Medford Schools Department of Buildings and Grounds. As you come back to the Medford Schools, we hope that you will have the opportunity to appreciate many of the energy efficiency and quality of life improvements that have been made this summer. Additionally, there are a few projects that we expect to move forward this Fall, that we want to let you know about.

This summer, thanks to the National Grid Small Business Program we were able to focus on lighting throughout the city-owned buildings. Through this program National Grid pays 70% of the costs of lighting upgrades that their consultant recommends. The other 30% is financed on our electric bills, allowing us to save money and energy with no upfront costs. The lights installed through this program use less energy and have less mercury in them than the lights they replaced. They are also at least as bright, if not brighter, than the old lights. You can see these new lights in the classrooms, hallways and gymnasiums in the Roberts School, the Brooks School and the Columbus School.

Businesses in Medford interested in taking advantage of this program can go online to fill out the request form.

The McGlynn and Andrews Schools and the Medford High School are too large to qualify for this program, but City Energy and School Building staff are working with energy consultants to bring lighting improvements to these buildings during the upcoming school year.

Students in Medford High School may find the halls and classrooms of the Vocational School to be not as hot this Fall, thanks to a hot water heater upgrade paid for by the City’s MA Green Communities Grant. This grant is allowing us to replace 40 year-old steam powered hot water heaters with new, high efficiency natural gas hot water heaters. This project will be complete during the first few weeks of classes and will allow us to stop sending steam down the length of the Vocational School unless it is actually needed for heat. Please bear with us during the final cut-overs and inspections while we bring this new system online.

This fall the City expects to sign a Power Purchase Agreement with Dagle Electric which will allow Dagle to install solar panels on the roofs of our schools at no cost to the City, and the City will pay Dagle for the clean electricity the panels produce at a reduced rate. It is anticipated that this contract will be signed in time for installation of panels on the roof of the Andrews School to be complete by the end of December. Installations on the other schools will be done during the Spring Term.

Other projects the Office of Energy & Environment and School Building Department are investigating include replacing steam traps, replacing broken clocks in classrooms with energy efficient models, and other mechanical improvements.

Additionally the Office of Energy and Environment will be hosting the 2nd annual Harvest Your Energy Festival as the base “Windy” the Medford wind turbine on Saturday October 1st, from 1 to 4 PM. Please join us to learn more about what we have been working on, get tours of the turbine and support Medford students, organizations and environmentally minded businesses at the Festival.

– Submitted by Alicia Hunt, Energy Efficiency Coordinator, City of Medford Energy & Environment Office