Project News

Congratulations to North Kansas City Schools for receiving ENERGY STAR Awards for 2017 on 28 of their schools. The school district was able to capitalize on their recent energy program with us to receive the ENERGY STAR certification on the following schools:

• Antioch Middle School
• Briarcliff Elementary School
• Chapel Hill Elementary School
• Chouteau Elementary School
• Clardy Elementary School
• Crestview Elementary School
• Davidson Elementary School
• Eastgate Middle School
• Fox Hill Elementary School
• Gashland Elementary School
• Golden Oaks Education Center
• Gracemor Elementary School
• Lakewood Elementary School
• Linden West Elementary School
• Maple Park Middle School
• Maplewood Elementary School
• Meadowbrook Elementary School
• Nashua Elementary School
• New Mark Middle School
• Northview Elementary School
• Oak Park High School
• Oakwood Manor Elementary School
• Ravenwood Elementary School
• Staley High School
• Topping Elementary School
• West Englewood Elementary School
• Winnetonka High School
• Winnwood Elementary School

Most people are familiar with the little blue ENERGY STAR mark on appliances and other products, but the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also uses the program to certify buildings that are energy efficient. And, yes, they get an actual blue ENERGY STAR mark that they can display in a prominent location in their building.

The EPA has 21 building categories that can be used to rate how energy efficient a building is compared to all the other buildings of that type across the United States. A score of 50 is typical for most buildings and means that your building is only average in energy efficiency. A score of 25 means that your building is not very energy efficient and only better than 25% of all building of the same type nationwide. A building must receive a score of 75 or better to be ENERGY STAR certified.

North Kansas City Schools has received ENERGY STAR certification on 28 of its schools, which is a HUGE achievement by itself. But they also have ten schools (Briarcliff, Chouteau, Fox Hill, Lakewood, Linden West, Meadowbrook, Nashua, Northview, Oakwood Manor, and West Englewood) that received scores 95 or above. That means that these ten buildings are more energy efficient that 95% of all the schools of the same type in the whole United States!

Way to go North Kansas City Schools!

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Click here for more information on the EPA’s ENERGY STAR for buildings.

Click here for more information on North Kansas City Schools’ energy project.

Navitas is pleased to announce that we are working with the Omaha Home for Boys to help them improve their facilities and create a better environment for living, learning and working.

The Omaha Home for Boys is a non-profit organization that has helped youth, young adults and families for nearly 100 years by providing housing, education and support. They also provide office and event space to other organizations in the community. These services are largely done on a main campus with a few satellite locations.

The main campus is a well maintained, beautiful campus that has served the Omaha Home for Boys since the 1940’s. Despite the outward appearance, some of the campus infrastructure has reached the end of its useful life – in particular, the central chilled water system, one of the central boilers, many of the building HVAC units, and the building controls.

The greatest example of a system at the end of its useful life may be the central heating and cooling piping that runs throughout the campus. In recent years, this piping has had many, very costly leaks. These leaks not only impact the operating budget, but also caused inconvenience to the occupants and students.

The Omaha Home for Boys chose Navitas to be their ESCO partner and help them solve these problems and find energy and operational savings to help pay for the improvements. Navitas went through a thorough process to understand the issues and goals of the Omaha Home for Boys and to work with them to develop the best solution to meet the needs of the students, residents, occupants, and other community stakeholders.

The resulting solution, an energy conservation project, allowed the Omaha Home for Boys to develop a technical and financial plan to address their issues and help lay the groundwork for the next 100 years. Over the next 15 years, the Omaha Home for Boys will save nearly $4,800,000 in energy and maintenance savings. Furthermore, the project eliminates more than $4,200,000 in deferred maintenance liabilities. Taken together, these savings will more than pay for the entire $6,300,000 project.

Scope of Work:

1. New chilled water plant
2. Expanded heating plant with high efficiency condensing boilers
3. New hot water and chilled water distribution piping
4. Updated HVAC equipment in some of the buildings
5. New control system with ability for real-time monitoring of operations and energy use via data analytics and sub-metering
6. New high efficiency LED lighting
7. New water savings plumbing fixtures
8. Some improvements to building envelope

Navitas is pleased to announce that we are working with Washington County USD 108 to help them improve their facilities and create a better learning environment for their students.

Washington County USD is a rural school district located in north central Kansas. They have one building with multiple additions for most of the K-12 classrooms. The district has done a good job maintaining the facility over the years, but time has not been kind. Most of the heating and air conditioning equipment is well past its useful life and in desperate need of replacement.

In fact, the air handling units that serve the high school portion of the building were install in 1952 when the school was originally built. The district has had a hard time finding replacement parts and there was a very real concern that the equipment would fail and leave the high school without heat in the winter.

Washington County USD chose Navitas to be their ESCO partner and help them solve these problems. We worked with the district to help them decide which solution made the most sense for their facilities, their students and staff, their community and their budget.

Ultimately the district decided to abandon the old air handling units at the high school, but keep the existing air distribution ducts as much as possible to help keep costs down. The new system that is being installed has two packaged units that are more efficient than the old units and will be considerably easier to maintain.

We are also replacing the rooftop units in other parts of the facility and adding a new building automation system. This BAS will allow better control of all the heating and cooling equipment and will substantially reduce times the equipment runs even though it’s not needed. This helps to extend the life of the equipment and also helps the district save energy.

The project also includes replacing the old windows in the high school as well as sealing the gaps between windows, walls, and doors to prevent air infiltration that caused drafts in the winter. The district also was able to upgrade the lighting throughout the facility to new LED lamps that are not only very energy efficient, but will last a lot longer than the old fluorescent tubes.

The district opted to use the Kansas Facility Conservation Improvement Program (FCIP) services for this project. FCIP provides third-party oversight during the development of the project to ensure the project meets statutory requirements and that the energy savings estimates are accurate. The program also provides a project review during the construction process.

As a result of this energy conservation project, the district is able to take care of their most pressing and costly capital needs. They will also save more than $1,200,000 over 15-year term of the contract. These savings, along with some capital monies the district elected to use, will pay for the entire project.

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For more information about this project click here.

Check out this video of Karl Jansen, the superintendent of Everton R-III School District, talking about the energy project we did with them. They had a huge problem with the windows in their building, so much so that they had snow on the window sills INSIDE the classrooms. Using an energy performance contract, Navitas was able to help them not only replace these terrible windows, but also upgrade their HVAC equipment, replace roofs, and upgrade the lighting. All of this has made the classrooms at Everton much more comfortable, which makes it easier for the students to focus on learning.

This video was taken during our workshop “Turning Over Rocks to Find Money” at the 2017 Missouri School Boards’ Association (MSBA) conference. Karl was one of the panelists featured in the workshop.