This post was written by Jim Morris, assistant director of environmental and energy management for the school division. 

Five schools will be participating in this year’s  “Battle of the Buildings,” an ENERGY STAR program that is a take off the “Biggest Loser”-type competition. The “weight” that is being measured is the energy weight of each building, which is essentially the energy use per square foot of each building. This year, VBCPS has selected five buildings as participants:

• Salem High School
• Corporate Landing Middle School
• Birdneck Elementary School
• Centerville Elementary School
• Tallwood Elementary School

This is the third consecutive year VBCPS has participated in the competition – and we have a pretty good track record.

Last year, only the division’s second year in the competition, VBCPS represented itself very well. Out of more than 3,000 participants, all three buildings who took part in the challenge (Ocean Lakes High School, Birdneck Elementary School and Bayside Elementary School) placed in the top third of the competition. Ocean Lakes High School was number 139, and the second-ranked school in Virginia. In this competition, all losers are winners – the greenhouse gas equivalent of emissions prevented by these three schools’ conservation efforts was nearly 550 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. OLHS set a strong precedent, with more than $87,000 in avoided energy costs.

There is also a new twist to the competition this year. Not only is each building going to be compared to all the other buildings in the competition (and there are more than 5,800 buildings competing this year), but they also compete in a team competition. The schools’cumulative results will also be compared to other building owners’ portfolio of submitted buildings. There are 112 teams in this competition. So, even if VBCPS does not have a single building win, the division could win as a team if all of the submitted buildings do well.

Stay tuned to The Core, Facebook and Twitter as updates in the competition will be posted there.