Hillsborough County Public Schools Modernizes with Energy Infrastructure as a Service

Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS), one of the nation’s largest public school districts, took control of its facility needs by partnering with Generate Capital to prioritize energy cost savings and conservation to create high-performing learning environments across the district’s more than 250 schools and 220,000 students.

Generate entered an EaaS agreement with HCPS, tasking McKinstry to perform energy design, build, operations and maintenance across the HCPS district as part of its EaaS delivery. The partnership’s approach transformed HCPS operations through continuous facility retrofits that deliver better indoor air quality, lighting and overall comfort.

Specific program goals include:

• Reduce energy use and overall operations and maintenance cost by 20%.
• Provide a comfortable, clean and safe learning environment for students and faculty.
• Create a culture of environmental stewardship across the district.
• Utilize recognized global best practices in energy conservation, efficiency and optimization.

The multi-layered effort is already realizing significant achievements in energy efficiency, cost savings, increased comfort and student engagement. From July 2022 through June 2023, Generate and McKinstry guided HCPS in realizing $13 million in annual avoided utility costs by reducing electricity use by 118,000 MWh (or 36% of baseline electricity use). Recent projects have also yielded an additional $9.3 million reduction in annual operating costs.

Generate and McKinstry have collectively eliminated nearly 45,000 metric tons of CO₂emissions within HCPS operations, the equivalent carbon emissions of removing more than 10,000 gasoline-powered cars from the road.

Further benefits to HCPS via the EaaS partnership include:

• 100% of classroom ventilation performance evaluated to improve indoor air quality (IAQ).
• District-wide event and space scheduling system implemented for ease of control and operation of classroom air conditioning systems with over 18,000 events scheduled per year.
• 400,000 lighting fixtures upgraded to LED to improve quality of classroom lighting conditions.
• Electrical metering installed throughout all district buildings to provide energy use visibility down to the minute.
• 56 ENERGY STAR Certified Schools (schools recognized as being in the top 25th percentile of the nation) and 2022 EPA recognition as an Executive Member with the third largest number of certifications in the nation.

Apart from improving lighting, and optimizing the HVAC and energy management systems, the EaaS partnership also equips HCPS students and employees with the education and awareness needed to reduce their personal energy consumption and carbon emissions, providing the behavioral tools necessary to make a lasting impact within their schools and communities.

Viridis Initiative originated from the strategic partnership between Generate Capital and McKinstry born at HCPS to scale the partnership’s EaaS model nationwide. Viridis is pursuing similar agreements with K-12 school districts, higher education institutions, municipal governments, sports and event venues and hospitals nationwide.

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