Buffalo Elementary School will get an energy makeover thanks to the federal stimulus program.

The South Carolina Budget and Control Board’s State Energy Office has awarded the Union County School District $139,077 stimulus grant to make energy improvements at the school. The grant is part of the $20.3 million in energy efficiency grants and loans made available under the federal stimulus program to South Carolina’s 85 school districts.

Finance Director Lynn Lawson said Tuesday that while the district was allocated the funds earlier this year, the money could not be awarded until the district submitted a plan for its use. Lawson said that he and Maintenance Director Billy Scott developed a plan involving improvements at Buffalo Elementary to submit to the State Energy Office. The plan includes improvements designed to reduce energy use by the school’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems.

“What we will do is retrofit the HVAC controls to the same controls that are currently used at Union County High School, Sims Middle School and Jonesville Elementary/Middle K-8 School,” Lawson said. “This control system is computerized and centrally-controlled at the district level. It will allow us to program preset temperature points based on scheduled building activities. It will eliminate any wasteful operation of the units in the building.

“The engineered estimates calculate an annual energy savings of $15,139,” he said. “This is 20-year equipment and projections are that over its life cycle the energy savings will total $302,782.”

Lawson said the installation of the system will cost an estimated $98,300 which will be repaid within seven years.

The balance of the funds will be used to replace the school’s fluorescent lights with newer, more energy-efficient lighting.

“We’re replacing T-12 fluorescent lamps with newer T-8 electronic ballast fluorescent lamps which generate much less heat,” Lawson said. “The engineering estimates are $5,715 annual reduction in energy costs.This is considered 20-year equipment also with break even in seven and a projected life cycle savings of $114,299.”

Lawson said that in order to avoid disrupting school, the installation of the new systems will not take place until summer 2010.

Carlsan

The Union County Board of School Trustees voted unanimously Monday night to approve a recommendation by Lawson that a survey of the old Carlsan school property on S.C. 215 be conducted.

Lawson told the board that there’d been some questions about the value of the property, specifically the timber on it. He said those questions cannot be answered without a clearly marked survey. The property has not been surveyed for a number of years.

Carlsan was an elementary school for a number of years and more recently has been leased by the district to the Union County Recreation Department and Carolina Community Action. Lawson said the ballfield is still being used by the recreation department, but Carolina Community Action has moved its operations out of the building to the old Jonesville Elementary School.