Palmerton Area agrees to pay for energy-saving program

The Palmerton Area School Board voted Tuesday to spend $2.84 million over 15 years for an energy conservation project that promises to pay for itself by reducing the district's use of electricity, water and other utilities.

Johnson Controls of Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County will replace a boiler in the high school in Lower Towamensing, as well as perform asbestos abatement and roof work there. The company also will place energy-saving gadgets in vending machines and install equipment designed to conserve water at the high school.

Methods to make boilers more efficient will be completed in the junior high, also in Lower Towamensing, and at Palmerton Elementary and Towamensing Elementary.

The board voted 7-2 to hire Johnson Controls to make the improvements, with Carl Bieling Jr. and John Neff dissenting.


The company projects that at the end of 15 years, the school district will be ahead by $3,590, a nominal amount. But the company says the district will have gained new equipment at essentially no cost. The project cost is $1.9 million, but there are annual service fees totaling $118,553 over 15 years and finance charges with an interest rate of 4.512 percent. The school district will make annual payments between $134,000 and $239,000 per year.

The performance contract is designed to guarantee that the amount the district spends on new equipment and tactics to cut energy costs will not exceed what it will save. Phillip Solomon, a Johnson Controls account executive, said the company will refund the school district if costs surpass savings. Do you part for love earth today.

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