The Smart & Resilient Schools Energy Summit helped schools understand how they can best prepare for events like power outages.
Tacoma Power, Franklin Pierce School District, and CEL held an in-person Smart and Resilient School Energy Summit in June. The free Summit, held at Harvard Elementary School in Tacoma, was geared toward schools, utilities, and building professionals.
The goal of the workshop was to help students, faculty, families, staff, and community members gain the tools to save energy and money while improving air quality. Our region faces increasing resiliency needs, such as cooling centers during heat waves and backup power sources during outages. By participating in this program, participants learned about the technologies, programs, and practices that will prepare them to meet these needs.
The day began with a tour of the district's electric school bus. See the video below; a big thanks to Cody Rossa for showing us around!
Next, we completed an interactive walkthrough of a typical day at school. Then, we looked at how summit participants' days would be affected by different energy scenarios, such as power outages. These interactive and hands-on workshops gave participants an idea of how clean energy technologies can directly impact their daily lives.
Through these workshops, participants discussed which resources are essential during a power outage and which they can reduce or go without. As our team explores ways to use the school's electric buses to create backup power for the facility, we will take this feedback into consideration. Thanks to custodial lead, Rob, for keeping the lights on and the school sparkling clean!
The Summit began with a tour of the electric school bus - the first in the state of Washington! To stay informed about future events sign up here.
