LIPA Hosts Back to School Energy Summits for LI Schools

Seeks to Increase Energy Efficiency and Lower Energy Costs

Uniondale, NY- The Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) yesterday convened the first “Back to School Energy Efficiency Summit” for Nassau County School Districts at LIPA’s Uniondale headquarters in an effort to assist districts in becoming more energy efficient and thereby lowering energy costs. More than 20 Nassau school districts were represented and LIPA has a second summit scheduled for Suffolk schools on October 3 at the Selden campus of Suffolk Community College in Selden.

“With the cost of oil nearly ten times higher than it was a mere decade ago, and with property taxes and energy costs in our region continuing to escalate and driving young people to more affordable pastures, we must take affirmative steps to stem the tide and do what we can now to lower energy costs, emphasize conservation and be cognizant of the impact we as energy consumers have on the environment,” said LIPA President and CEO Kevin S. Law.

For the last ten years LIPA has worked with hundreds of schools and public facilities on Long Island through its $355 million clean energy initiative. Under Law’s leadership, LIPA is poised to embark next year on an efficiency program that will increase that investment exponentially to nearly a billion dollars over the next ten years.

LIPA is partnering with the New York Power Authority on their substantial school efficiency programs in order to maximize the value and increase the savings for Long Island’s schools. Representatives from NYPA participated in yesterday’s event by providing information and assistance on the variety of programs available to Long Island’s school districts under its umbrella.

“You are uniquely positioned to be at the forefront of this movement,” Law said, addressing district administrators and facilities managers. “Introducing these concepts to the many thousands of bright young and impressionable minds that walk through the halls of your facilities every day will surely impact the future in a positive way. And we can start by partnering to improve the energy efficiency of your facilities, many of which were built decades ago and without efficiency and conservation factoring heavily into the designs and operations. We need 20th Century building designs to give way to 21st Century energy practices,” Law said.

“This arm of LIPA, which will provide direct assistance to school districts to plan, develop, and implement energy conservation and creative energy measures is very welcome,” said Ron Friedman, Great Neck’s superintendent and President of the Nassau County Council of School Superintendents. “As a number of us have already seen, we can save considerable dollars, reduce our carbon footprint, and teach good lessons to our children all at once by the use of new technology and creative cooperative ways of financing and completing such projects. Having a ‘go to’ person and division of LIPA is of real value to us.”

“We appreciated the opportunity to learn of the activities and assistance that LIPA and NYPA have available for schools and municipalities to address energy needs in our community,” said Thomas Markle, Superintendent of the Seaford Union Free School District. “We look forward to working with representatives in these organizations to implement solar solutions and to also provide our students with valuable educational and demonstration experience.”

"I found the Energy Summit to be a valuable opportunity to learn more about the various programs available from LIPA to help reduce energy costs both in school and at home,” said Dr. Richard S. Marsh, Superintendent of the Bethpage Union Free School District. “It was very encouraging to learn that LIPA is making it a goal to assist school districts with energy audits and performance contracts to reduce the burdening utility costs facing schools across the metropolitan area."

“The New York Power Authority is pleased to partner with LIPA in providing turn-key energy efficiency services to the school districts of Long Island,” said Angelo Esposito, senior vice president of the New York Power Authority. NYPA has been a leader in providing energy efficiency services across New York State and, to date has completed over 1,600 projects with investments in excess of $1.2 billion. Moreover, we are committed to investing an additional $1.4 billion in energy efficiency and renewables through 2015 in support of Governor Paterson’s ’15 by 15” Initiative.”

The Back to School Energy Summit marked the first of Law’s formal outreach efforts to schools to discuss its programs and how LIPA’s partnership with NYPA in this area can benefit the region.

“We want to make sure that Long Island’s school districts know what LIPA can do to help them, especially as we prepare to roll out our expanded energy efficiency program next year,” said Law. “LIPA’s customers and Long Island’s property taxpayers are one and the same. If we can help schools become more energy efficient, we will all benefit, while simultaneously benefitting our environment.”

LIPA’s current Energy Efficiency programs include:

Prescriptive—which offers incentives for purchasing energy efficient items from a prescribed list of products, including lighting fixtures, motors and occupancy sensors.
Custom—which offers incentives of up to $200,000 for items not on the Prescriptive list, such as geothermal systems, reflective roofing and building energy management systems.
Whole Building—LIPA will work with building owners and their design teams to develop an energy efficiency plan specifically designed for the entire building, including up to $400,000 in incentives and assistance.
Retrofit—which provides up to $200,000 in incentives for customers to replace equipment before the end of its useful life.
Energy Audits—LIPA will provide free energy audits for a facility.
Commissioning—LIPA offers customers up to $50,000 for commissioning services as an assurance that the energy efficiency measures a customer installs are working properly.
Technical Assistance—LIPA provides up to $10,000 in technical assistance services to help choose and implement energy efficiency measures and equipment.
Solar Electric (Photovoltaics or PV)—LIPA will provide rebates of $3.50 per watt for regular commercial customers or $4.50 per watt for schools, municipalities and not-for-profit customers for installation of approved PV systems up to 10,000 watts.
LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)—LIPA will provide up to $500,000 in incentives and assistance to a customer’s LEED certified project.

LIPA, a non-profit municipal electric provider, owns the retail electric Transmission and Distribution System on Long Island and provides electric service to more than 1.1 million customers in Nassau and Suffolk counties and the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens. LIPA is the 2nd largest municipal electric utility in the nation in terms of electric revenues, 3rd largest in terms of customers served and the 7th largest in terms of electricity delivered. In 2010, LIPA outperformed all other overhead electric utilities in New York State for frequency of service interruptions, and ranked second for duration of service interruptions. LIPA does not provide natural gas service or own any on-island generating assets. More information about LIPA can be found online at: http://www.lipower.org.

Media Contact Information
Mark Gross
Phone - (516) 719-9892
Media Pager - (516) 229-7248
media.relations@lipower.org

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