Laura N. Stuart

The Baldwin County Board of Education approved a new five-year service contract with Siemens Building Technologies Oct. 16 in an attempt to recoup energy savings lost by a lack of energy monitoring in 43 of 45 county schools.

“I think the potential for savings is so significant in relation to energy, that we need to move ahead,” Elmer McDaniel, District 3 board member, said.

The original contact between the BOE and Siemens expired in April 2006.

According to Siemens, the board has already invested $10 to $11 million in energy control systems, but those systems have to be maintained to save energy costs.

“It has become very evident that the addition of approximately 500,000 square feet and the staffing levels of service staff that it has just become impossible to maintain energy management and keep it automatic. It has begun negating some of the savings and strategic enhancements made,” Bobby Marcus, Siemens general manager, said.

Marcus said schools have had difficulty providing required, periodic maintenance the systems require and performing emergency services for failures and problems.

According to the customized technical support program the BOE approved Thursday, the board will pay Siemens approximately $905,892 over five years to provide on-site support to resolve issues, retro commissioning of the monitoring systems currently in place, the addition of enhancements to the monitoring system, tightening of occupancy schedules and emergency services.

“Bringing in unconditioned, outside air is a huge energy hog, because it has to be dehumidified and all sorts of other things. If we can tighten the occupancy schedules, we can easily get a 10 to 15 percent savings,” Marcus said.

Marcus said one of the problems he sees with schools, not just in Baldwin County, is manual overriding of the system due to extracurricular activities.

Frank Boatwright, school board capital improvement coordinator, said schools are bypassing Siemens controls and the board is losing savings because of it.

“It is my opinion that the school board is never going to be able to keep up with technology, be it intercoms or controls, but we have to maintain the system we have,” Boatwright said.

Boatwright said when the Gulf Shores Elementary School system went down last week, a Siemens representative in Pensacola was able to remotely connect to the school and save days of work by quickly identifying the problem.

“He pulled everything up and told us exactly where the cable was cut,” Boatwright said. “Someone was trenching and cut the cable.”

Boatwright said the board would see savings by taking everything out of hand controls and training personnel on the systems.

Eddie Tyler, assistant superintendent, said Siemens has a broad knowledge of the county and a good knowledge of working systems.

“Siemens knows what we expect from them, and we know what they expect from us. The communication is there, and our people will be training with the Siemens when they are on-site working,” Tyler said.

Included in the agreement is at least one Siemens representative working daily throughout Baldwin County.

Not included in the agreed price are parts for failed machines.

“Honestly, I don’t know how many parts are going to fail each year,” Marcus said. “This stuff does not fail that much.”

Marcus said that he did not want pricing to be an issue for the board and all parts were priced on General Services Administration levels, which puts them at the lowest purchase price available.

The contract does include an escape clause if either party is dissatisfied.