Twinsburg High School Finishes Second in National Energy Competition

just showed the nation just how easy it is to be “green”.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Wednesday the high school finished second in the “National Building Competition: Battle of the Buildings” that it sponsored with Energy Star.

The competition, modeled after the TV show The Biggest Loser, had 245 buildings around the country compete to see which building could reduce its energy use the most.

Twinsburg High School reduced it’s energy usage in one year by 46 percent, saving the district $505,000. The school also reduced its amount of greenhouse gasses by 2,412 metric tons, making the building Energy Star certified.

"Nobody's even close to that," said Stephen Shebeck, school board member. "Everybody's in the hundreds and we're over 2,000. Our green imprint has just expanded by that greenhouse reduction."

The building finished in first place for buildings 300,000 square-feet or larger and first place in school buildings K-12.

“I think the project came out a hundred times more successful than we could have imagined,” Shebeck said.

Headed by Assistant Superintendent Mike Lenzo, the district teamed up with performance contracting company CCG Energy Solutions to make improvements to the building that will make it more energy efficient.

“CCG really helped us understand how our facility should be operated, not only for energy efficiency but also student and staff comfort,” Lenzo said in a press release earlier this year. “The education CCG has given to our facilities staff has provided us with operating guidelines we will implement district wide.”

Each participant entered one-year’s utility bills to the EPA to form a baseline for where it was, then submitting the utility bills throughout the following year to gauge the building’s progress. The baseline period was from Sept. 1, 2009 to Aug. 31, 2010 and the comparative period began Sept. 1, 2010 to Aug. 31, 2011.

The winner of the competition was a parking garage at the University of Central Florida, reducing energy use by 63 percent. Polaris Career Center in Middleburg Heights finished a close third behind Twinsburg at 43 percent.

Twinsburg's success was also mentioned in a report this week by the USA Today.