Hattiesburg, Miss., September 10, 2013 - Cenergistic, a national energy conservation company, presented The Award for Energy Stewardship to William Carey University representatives on September 5. In the 15 months since forming a strategic alliance with Cenergistic, WCU has achieved a 17 percent cost savings totaling $289,168. The award recognizes WCU's efforts to implement an innovative organizational behavior-based energy conservation and management program.
"Reaching this level of savings at this stage of the program is a significant achievement. William Carey University has done an excellent job of implementing Cenergistic's organizational behavior-base approach to energy conservation and maintaining productive efforts at all levels of the organization. The administration and all staff members are to be commended for clearly fulfilling their commitment to being good stewards of the organization's energy dollars and the environment," said Dr. William S. Spears, chairman and founder of Cenergistic.
The conservation program examines all areas of energy use throughout the university. Cenergistic's conservation experts work closely with the WCU's energy specialist, Scotty Fletcher, training him to analyze all energy use throughout the organization's systems, and to ensure that energy is used as efficiently as possible following Cenergistic's energy management program.
Fletcher tracks energy consumption — including electricity, water, sewer, natural gas and fuel oil — using energy-accounting software. He compares current energy use to a baseline period and calculates the amount of energy that would have been used had conservation and management practices not been implemented. By tracking consumption and analyzing energy use, Scotty can quickly identify and correct areas that need immediate attention.
"I would like to thank all William Carey employees, the board of trustees and Cenergistic for helping us to achieve the energy conservation stewardship award," Scotty said. "This was a total team effort and this award shows the dedication of everyone involved to make our energy conservation program successful. Our goals and intentions in the future are to stay the path of conserving energy and providing a healthy friendly environment."
According to EPA/EGrid figures, in the first 15 months of the program, WCU saved 9,138 MMBTU, the equivalent of 1,693 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions being prevented, 304 cars removed from the road, or 43,294 pine trees grown for 10 years.