For the past 10 months, apparently, IBM has been working with the City University of New York (CUNY) on analytics software specifically focused on helping schools in the New York public school system better-manage their energy consumption. But, frankly, I don't see any reason why this technology couldn't be applied to other public school systems in the future, with some localization.
The project is a collaboration of IBM Research, IBM Global Business Services, and the CUNY Building Performance Lab. The software tracks and forecasts energy consumption, based on information about past performance as well as peak potential performance. The application couples historical building information with local weather data.
Said John Shea, CEO of the division of School Facilities for the New York City Department of Education:
"One of our goals at the Department of Education is to reduce energy use in our buildings and learn from it. The IBM/CUNY energy analytics tool would help us better manage our buildings and would help our teachers incorporate the information from the energy use in the building to supplement the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics curriculum."
This sort of technology is critical because it would be silly to think that a city or town is going to build a new building from scratch, especially during the current budget crunch faced by state and local governments across the United States. The fact that this software could help cut energy consumption AND provide material for school curriculum is a double-plus.
Here are some related posts about schools and the issue of energy efficiency:
- Why energy efficiency has more traction than green energy sourcing
- Getting smarter about energy should be mandatory school curriculum
- Reading, writing and energy efficiency
- For Cal State, energy efficiency = new revenue
- U.S. school districts need a course in Energy Efficiency 101