Teachers and staff at Noblesville Schools are leading the way for others while achieving big savings with energy-efficient behavior — and now those good habits are earning the school district national recognition.

Noblesville Schools has achieved a 35 percent cost savings totaling $1,560,799 in 20 months since forming a strategic alliance with Energy Education, a national energy conservation company.

Energy Education presented its Energy Pacesetter Award during the Board meeting April 20. The Energy Pacesetter Award is for those stellar organizations that are “setting the pace” in energy savings for others. It is designated only for programs achieving above-average savings, recognizing the support and cooperation of administration, faculty and staff organization-wide.

“Reaching this level of savings at this stage of the program is a significant achievement. Noblesville Schools has done an excellent job of implementing Energy Education’s people-oriented approach to energy conservation and maintaining productive efforts at all levels of the organization. The chief administrator and board, along with other administration, faculty and staff members are to be commended for clearly fulfilling their commitment to being good stewards of the taxpayers’ money and the environment,” said Dr. William S. Spears, chief executive officer and founder of Energy Education.

“Strong support from Superintendent Libbie Conner and the school board have created an atmosphere of cooperation that should continue to grow and ensure even greater success well into the future,” Dr. Spears said.

“I am extremely pleased to present Noblesville Schools with our Energy Pacesetter Award. The District joins a very committed, elite group of organizations across the country working hard to conserve energy so the dollars saved can be redirected to other needs,” said Dr. Spears.

A key benefit of the Energy Education program is that all costs come out of the existing utility budget, with savings projected to more than pay for the program, as they have done for Noblesville Schools. Additional savings can be redirected to other parts of the budget. Many organizations credit the program with helping keep personnel and programs that would otherwise have fallen victim to budget cuts — a very real concern with today’s rising energy cost concerns.

Tim Sturgeon, coordinator of Energy Education for Noblesville Schools, tracks energy consumption — including electricity, water, sewer, natural gas and fuel oil — using energy-accounting software. He compares current energy use to a baseline period and calculates the amount of energy that would have been used had conservation and management practices not been implemented. By tracking consumption and analyzing energy use, he can quickly identify and correct areas that need immediate attention.

Energy Education’s innovative Transformational Energy Management™ process trains client personnel to implement behavioral and organizational change that substantially reduces energy consumption without the purchase of new equipment. The program is funded solely and rapidly by the savings it generates, allowing clients to redirect saved energy dollars to other priorities. In 24 years, Energy Education has worked with more than 1,000 educational and ministry organizations, helping clients save over $2 billion in utility costs. Energy Education was named 2009 and 2010 ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.