ELWOOD, Ind. — You might not know it to look at Elwood Community High School, but it turned greener this year.

The air inside got better. And the power bills began what is expected to be a sharp and steady decline.

“If I won the lottery, I would put geothermal in my house,” Elwood Superintendent Tom Austin said of the efficient and environmentally friendly heating and cooling system now in place at the high school, installed this past summer at a cost of $3,059,976.

Despite the up-front expense, Austin said it will save taxpayers money. Elwood’s Edgewood and Oakland elementary schools have been powered by geothermal power for years. “It pays for itself in about four years,” he said.

“We’ve never had a problem. This is our seventh year with geothermal and it’s been virtually maintenance-free.”

Elwood’s investment in a high-efficiency, carbon-reducing heating and cooling system is among the bold steps that area school systems are taking to be greener while promising savings in utility costs.

The Shenandoah School Corp. last week received notice that it will receive a $700,000 low-interest loan funded by federal stimulus money. The Clean Renewable Energy Bond proceeds will be used to bring geothermal heating and cooling to all three of the system’s schools, Superintendent Ron Green said.

Green said Shenandoah also wants to harness wind power, and is waiting to hear whether its application for a wind turbine in conjunction with the geothermal project will be approved.

“You always have to be concerned about ecology and the environment, and any time you have an opportunity to help the environment and save money, you should look at it, and that’s what we’ve done,” Green said.

“It’s something that would create in a short period of time a substantial savings to our taxpayers,” he said.

The cost of Shenandoah’s geothermal project would be covered by the low-interest $700,000 loan if the wind project also is approved, Green said. The wind turbine would mean that a smaller well field would be needed for the heating and cooling system, lowering the cost.

At Anderson Community Schools, such innovations aren’t as easy due to a more urban location. ACS Business Manager Kevin Brown said the schools are trying to reduce energy consumption, move from costlier heating means, improve insulation in buildings and solicit energy-saving ideas from people in the system.

Still, the desire to adopt greener energy is there.

“We have not implemented any alternative sources for heating and cooling, but as the technology improves, hopefully we’ll be able to implement some of those,” Brown said.

Austin said the Elwood High School HVAC system had to be replaced.

“The catalyst for the whole project started in 2007 when the 34-year-old chiller unit basically died,” he said. It could have been replaced for a fraction of the geothermal unit’s cost, but several factors made it the right time for an ambitious project.

Elwood schools had access to money from the state Common School Fund, and had expected to pay nearly $4.5 million for the geothermal conversion.

But because of the economy, the work could be done for far less.

“The economy allowed us to do a lot more than we originally anticipated,” he said. That included renovating the gym, cafeteria, improving ducts throughout the building and a number of other upgrades for less than the original estimate for just the geothermal project.

But the one thing that can’t be seen — the air — is the biggest change. The old system had been a factor in mold that had to be remediated in the school’s library, among other problems.

“There are a lot of happy teachers here,” Austin said. “They suffered with an HVAC system that never worked right.

“The building smells better. It smells fresher.”

Contact Dave Stafford: 648-4250, dave.stafford@heraldbulletin.com



Geothermal at a glance

Here’s how Elwood’s closed-loop geothermal energy system works:

♦ Water is drawn from 178 wells that are each 270 feet deep. The water is a constant 55 degrees.

♦ The water is piped into the high school, where heat pumps regulate the water temperature.

♦ Sixty pumps throughout the building regulate air temperature in specified zones, which is raised and lowered by the circulating water.