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Perspective
Todd Myers
Environmental Director
Washington Policy Center
orth Carolina taxpayers are the winners when public schools operate efficiently and when every
public dollar is put to its best use and evaluated carefully. Officials and administrators who pursue
these goals should be applauded for their commitment. But good intentions do not ensure beneficial
outcomes.
Such is the story with green school buildings in North Carolina. This report analyzes green facilities
in four school districts: Wake, Durham, and Buncombe counties, along with the Iredell-Statesville public
schools. Research focused on schools receiving certification from the U.S. Green Building Councils
Leadership in Energy and Environment Design, or LEED, system.
This reports author concludes green school buildings in North Carolina fall far short of their promises
to protect the environment through lower energy costs and increased efficiency.
None of the green schools are best-performing in energy use when compared to similar schools in
the same district
In every school district, at least one of the green schools performs below average compared to
similar schools in the same district
In many cases green schools require changes that end up increasing cost and reducing energy
efficiency
Buncombe County: Instead of using 30 percent less energy, the countys two green schools used 7
percent more energy than nongreen schools
Iredell-Statesville: Third Creek Elementary is billed as the first LEED Gold- certified school building
in the nation but spends about $7,775 more per year on energy than the districts average elementary
school
Durham County: Among 28 comparable schools, the two green schools rank No. 10 and No. 15 in
energy efficiency, with both schools performing significantly worse than a much older district school
that spends about 34 percent to 37 percent less on energy
Wake County: The districts one green elementary school uses more natural gas per square foot than
comparable elementary schools in the district
Policymakers seeking efficiencies in school construction should analyze the lackluster results of their
sister districts and invest public dollars only in methods and technology that produce savings and
benefits
The views expressed in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of
the staff or board of the John Locke Foundation.
For more information, call 919-828-3876 or visit www.JohnLocke.org
j o h n l o c k e f o u n d at i o n
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Introduction
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PERSPECTIVE
schools of similar size and type in the same district. comfortable. Clyde A. Erwin Middle School built
Here are our findings.
seven years earlier than Eblen in 2004 uses nine
percent less energy per square foot.
Joe P. Eblen Intermediate School
During the 2014-15 school year, green-designed Eblen
Intermediate School used 6.2 kilowatt hours (kWh) per
square foot and 13.7 cubic feet of natural gas per square
foot. The school uses little natural gas, ranking second
in the district for natural gas use per square foot, but is
second-to-last in electricity use, ranking ninth out of ten
middle/intermediate schools.
On a cost basis, Eblen spends 77 cents per square foot for
energy, ranking it 6th out of the ten schools in the district.
As noted above, Eblen spends seven percent more than
the non-green middle schools in the district and 20
percent more than the most efficient middle school in the
district, Valley Springs Middle School, built in 1989.
One reason older schools use less energy is that
they have fewer power draws and can have poor
air conditioning systems, making the buildings less
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Valley Springs
Middle
North Windy
Ridge
Koontz
Intermediate
Natural Gas/Sq Ft
North Buncombe
Middle
Electricity/Sq Ft
Enka
Middle
Eblen
Intermediate
Cane Creek
Middle
CD Owen
Middle
$-
CA Erwin
Middle
$0.10
AC Reynolds
Middle
However, since Eblen actually performs worse than the the promised energy savings. Ultimately the district
average building, the additional cost to meet the LEED spent more money to construct buildings that are less
standards will likely never be recovered.
efficient.
Charles T. Koontz Intermediate School
Built at the same time, using the same green approach,
the energy-use numbers for Koontz are almost identical
to those of Eblen Intermediate School.
Valley Springs
Middle
North Windy
Ridge
North Buncombe
Middle
Koontz
Intermediate
Enka
Middle
Eblen
Intermediate
Cane Creek
Middle
CD Owen
Middle
CA Erwin
Middle
$-
AC Reynolds
Middle
$0.10
PERSPECTIVE
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Union Grove
Troutman
Third Creek
Shepherd
Sharon
Therms per Sq Ft
Woodland Heights
Electricity Per Sq Ft
Scotts
Lake Norman
Harmony
East Iredell
Cool Spring
Cloverleaf
Central
$Celeste Henkel
efficient as the average elementary school in the district. Durham School District
Over the 20-year lifespan of the school, that would There are several LEED-certified schools in the
mean an additional $155,500 in energy costs.
Durham school district, including two buildings that
Additionally, the school cost $8,749,600 to build meet the LEED Gold certification level. Two of the
in 2002. 12 Applying the conservative two percent green schools are elementary schools, and with 30
additional cost for green buildings especially since elementary schools overall, they provide an excellent
it met a high standard added about $171,560 to the opportunity to compare the energy-saving performance
total cost. If the school saved energy early in its life, of the LEED certified schools to traditionally built
it certainly is not doing so now, meaning the district schools.
probably did not recover the additional cost to meet the The two green schools are W.G. Pearson Elementary
LEED Gold standard. Between additional construction School, which received the lowest level of LEED
costs and energy costs, Third Creek Elementary will certification, Silver, and Sandy Ridge Elementary
cost the district an estimated $327,000 more in energy School, which is certified at the LEED Gold level the
use.
second highest level available.
The district does not have another LEED-certified
building, so administrators may have recognized that the
promised green benefits do not match the additional
costs when building and remodeling schools in recent
years. Given its age, the high level of certification it
received and its performance, Third Creek Elementary is
a warning to other school districts about the gap between
the promise and reality of building green schools.
$-
Bethesda
Burton
Club Blvd.
Creekside
Easley
Eastway
Eno Valley
Fayetteville St.
Forest View
Glenn
Harris
Hillanddale
Holt
Hope Valley
Lakewood
Merrick-Moore
Morehead
Oak Grove
Parkwood
Pearson
Pearsontown
Powe
Sandy Ridge
Smith
Southwest
Spaulding
Spring Valley
Watts
$0.50
kWh/Sq Ft
Therms per Sq Ft
PERSPECTIVE
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is not the case with Durhams two green elementary times as much as others. One reason for these anomalies
schools.
could be that meters are shared by schools or different
buildings and are, therefore, allocated to other schools.
Wake County School District
The largest school district we examined, the Wake
County Public School System, has one LEED-certified
green school, Alston Ridge Elementary School,
out of nearly 100 elementary schools in the district.
Alston Ridge was certified LEED in 2013. It received
the lowest level of certification, Silver, and it received
very few of its points in the Energy and Atmosphere
category.14 For this reason we would not expect to see
the building perform significantly better in energy use
than other schools, since certification was achieved
by scoring points in other categories like Indoor
Environmental Quality and Water Efficiency.
$0.25
$0.20
$0.15
$0.10
$0.05
$Alston
Ridge
Herbert
Akins
Road
Lake
Myra
Laurel
Park
Mills
Park
River
Bend
Sycamore
Creek
Walnut
Creek
PERSPECTIVE
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Endnotes
1. Architectural Design Studio, Koontz and Eblen Intermediate
Schools, ads-architects.com/portfolio/schools/koontz-eblen.
html (Accessed June 29, 2015)
2. Santa Fe School District, Santa Fe Pubic Schools Energy
Benchmarking Report, October 8, 2012, sfps.info/
DocumentCenter/View/7049 (Accessed August 8, 2013)
3. Frank, Thomas, Green schools: long on promise, short on
delivery, USA Today, December 11, 2012
usatoday.com/
story/news/nation/2012/12/10/green-schools-constructionleed/1753823/ (Accessed August 8, 2013)
4. According to the NC Department of Public Instructions
School Planning Division, In 1993, the North Carolina
General Assembly passed a bill requiring all Local Education
Authorities to establish an energy budget as a minimum
efficiency requirement or maximum energy usage for all
schools built in their jurisdiction. In addition, the 2009 North
Carolina State Building Code has set forth ASHRAE 90.1 as the
standard for building energy usage. It is the recommendation
of School Planning that each school facility be designed to
operate with at least 30% less energy than the base building
described in the 90.1-2004 standard. See North Carolina
Department of Public Instruction, Energy Guidelines For
K-12 Public Schools, March 2009, schoolclearinghouse.org/,
p. 2 (Accessed November 19, 2015)
5. The North Carolina Department of Public Instructions School
Planning Division provides multiple publications outlining
common-sense strategies for building energy efficient public
schools without the need to undertake LEED certification
process. Nevertheless, school districts are not required to
follow NC DPI guidelines for the construction or renovation
of school buildings. For example, see North Carolina
Department of Public Instruction, Energy Guidelines For
K-12 Public Schools, March 2009, schoolclearinghouse.org/
(Accessed November 19, 2015)
6. See, for example: Colorado Chapter USGBC, Colorado
USGBC, usgbccolorado.org/green-buildings/GreenSchools
Colorado.html (Accessed August 8, 2013)
7. For example, test scores vary widely from school to school and
measuring the impact of the school building as opposed to
socioeconomic or other factors is virtually impossible.
8. U.S. Green Building Council, Schools v2009 Checklist,
usgbc.org/resources/schools-v2009-checklist-xls (Accessed
August 31, 2013)
9. Buncombe County Schools, http://www.buncombe.k12.nc.us
10. Joint Legislative Audit Review Committee, High Performance
Public Buildings: Impact on Energy Use is Mixed, May 18,
2011,
leg.wa.gov/JLARC/AuditAndStudyReports/2011/
Documents/HighPerfPublicBuildingsPreliminary.pdf
(Accessed 8/25/2013)
11. North Carolina Green Building, Third Creek Elementary
School,
http://www.ncgreenbuilding.org/site/ncg/public/
show_project.cfm?project_id=67 (Accessed October 13, 2015)
12. US Department of Energy Energy Efficiency and Renewable
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
PERSPECTIVE
Todd Myers
Washington Policy Center
With more than a decade in environmental politics and public
relations, Todd Myers experience includes work on a range
of environmental issues, including spotted owl habitat, oldgrowth forests and salmon population. Currently, he serves as
a member of the Puget Sound Salmon Recovery Council and
was a member of the executive team at the Washington State
Department of Natural Resources.
Todd is the Environmental Director at the Washington Policy
Center, a market-oriented think tank in Seattle.
Myers is a Wall Street Journal Expert Panelist for Energy and the Environment. Several Washington state
newspapers, the BBC, USA Today, Fox News, CNN and the Wall Street Journal have all featured his work.
The views expressed in this report are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of
the staff or board of the John Locke Foundation.
For more information, call 919-828-3876 or visit www.JohnLocke.org
j o h n l o c k e f o u n d at i o n
johnlocke.org
PERSPECTIVE