AUBURN - A small breeze may become a steady gust of wind if the Auburn Enlarged City School District gets its way.

For the last several years, Auburn district leaders have pushed for eco-friendly technology and the use of renewable energy in each of its buildings. Now they are going one step further and thinking about using the mechanical whirl of wind turbines to generate electricity for the high school.

Superintendent J.D. Pabis and Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds Larry Garuccio are investigating the possibility of installing five wind turbines on Auburn High School grounds to supplement the electricity used to power the building and reduce the amount of electricity purchased from New York State Electric and Gas.

The district intends on applying for a grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority to help finance the turbines and possibly solar panels. So far, district leadership has spoken to vendors, begun initiating dialogue with the board of education and looked at long range planning.

“It's something new,” Pabis said of the idea, as he suspects few districts have approached NYSERDA about wind. “It has worked in other countries, and we're in the exploration, really, here at our district.”

With energy costs soaring in recent months, school districts across the region are thinking of ways - and implementing many of them - to cut down on power usage with the hopes of saving money and protecting the environment. While some districts, like Auburn and the

Cayuga-Onondaga Board of Cooperative Educational Services, are considering - and in some cases have already installed - new eco-friendly and energy efficient technology, other districts are using more conventional means to reduce energy costs.

They may not be The Jetsons-style aerocars, but the BOCES is gearing up for the next generation in transportation.

BOCES Superintendent Bill Speck and Assistant Superintendent for Business and Finance David Boyle foresee a fleet of cars running on clean combustible energy zooming across local roads and highways in the organization's future. In other words, so long foreign oil and its dirty gasoline; a cleaner, cheaper and more efficient fuel source may soon be coming in its stead.

BOCES is in the preliminary stages of erecting a natural gas fueling station on its building's site to initially fuel two vehicles for short-range commutes. While early designs depict the station having the capacity to fuel only two vehicles, Speck envisions an entire fleet of district cars one day running on natural gas or technology independent of gasoline.

In the coming weeks, BOCES administration will be applying for grants from NYSERDA and the Clean Cities initiative embedded within the U.S. Department of Energy to help finance the fueling station and corresponding vehicles.

Speck, who leads an organization housed within an eco-friendly building that is about 40 percent more efficient than standard code, views the fueling station as the next logical step for BOCES.

The $43.5 million, year-old campus is equipped with 220 geothermal wells for heating and cooling, electronic ballasts for lighting, in-floor radiant heat in the day-care center, automatic on/off classroom lighting and more than 210 windows that allow natural lighting on the 192,000-square foot first floor.

“I think this building is kind of an icon of the future,” Speck said. “It shows that with enough will, insight and energy, people can come together and build buildings that have this comfort level and this low energy requirement. It shows the public that it can be done on a large scale.”

BOCES is in the process of finishing the certification process with the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings. Speck is confident that LEED's audit will put the building at the gold level, the second tier of its rating system.

But that certification can change with each eco-friendly addition made to the building and its campus. Installing a natural gas fueling station will improve BOCES' standing with LEED, and put them one step closer to the platinum level, which Speck describes as being nearly completely off-grid.

“Down the line, as we look at future technology, if we wanted to bring wind on the campus, if we wanted to bring photovoltaics (technology that converts sunlight into electricity) on the campus, we certainly can be looking at that because the nature and design of the building is such that we could do that, which then could lead us to a different level.”

One grant BOCES is applying for would have NYSERDA and the federal government covering 50 percent of the cost of installing the fueling station. That could bring the local cost to a mere $6,000, Speck said. The second grant is for natural gas-powered vehicles. If approved, NYSERDA and Clean Cities - a federal program to reduce and ultimately eliminate the nation's dependence on petroleum in the transportation sector - would pay 75 percent of the difference between a natural gas vehicle and a gasoline vehicle.

Clean Cities of Central New York Coordinator Barry Carr will be assisting BOCES in obtaining this funding while also working with the city of Auburn and Cayuga County, which are recent members to the coalition, to reduce petroleum dependency and advocate for alternative energies.

Clean Cities' ultimately goal is to reduce petroleum consumption by two and a half billion gallons by 2020. There are six members in the New York state coalition and 88 Clean City coalitions nationwide.

“(The fueling station) should send a very positive message for two reasons,” Carr said. “Whenever someone is running a vehicle on natural gas it is 100 percent displacement of gasoline, and the second part of the message is that putting in alternative fuel infrastructure and using alternative fuel vehicles contributes to Leed ratings.”

But LEED certification and transportation costs will not be the only benefits from the fueling station and vehicles, Speck said.

“Another wonderful thing about natural gas is that we have students that come to learn everyday,” he said. “They come into a living example that this energy crisis or situation, it's not a hopeless, 'We can't do anything about it,' type of mindset. They come to school everyday in a building that is a living example that we can be conscious of sustainability, that we can implement sustainability and that we are all better off because of what we do here everyday.

“It serves as a starting point for a person to say, 'Okay, if we're here, what's next?' and it's what's next that we try to teach here.”

BOCES also participated in a voluntary brown-out for one hour last week, shutting down lights and air handling systems during peak usage - none of which impeded upon instruction and curriculum - and will be receiving a small refund check from NYSEG. Speck is even considering making the brown-out a regular occurrence.

“The idea is, it all matters,” Speck said. “It all adds up as a nation. If everybody did that for that one hour, it's an amazing savings to the nation.”

The Auburn school district is also taking proactive steps to make its buildings more energy efficient. Now in the last year of an energy performance project, the district is finishing up the installation of eco-friendly and energy efficient technology, some of which have already produced tangible monetary savings.

At East Middle School, the district converted an existing geothermal well to a gas well and connected it to a new cogeneration unit and a small steam boiler. The cogen converts gas into electricity and the excess heat it generates is used to heat domestic water and supplement the building's heating system, while the boiler supplements the usage of three larger boilers during the winter.

The result is $2,200 of savings each week.

At the high school, the district replaced three aging cogens with new ones, and installed state-of-the-art turbocor compressors to chill the building's water system.

New windows at West Middle School and William H. Seward Elementary School will increase the amount of natural light.

Air filters in every unit ventilator and air handling system district-wide have been upgraded from fiberglass to high efficiency pleated units, Garuccio said, resulting in more efficient operations and cleaner air.

A new digital readout system for the heating applications in each building has been installed to better maintain temperatures in classrooms and prevent them from becoming too hot or too cold. Garuccio needs only to look at his computer to see the temperatures in every district room and alter it, if necessary.

The district has installed motion sensors in every classroom for lighting; light bulbs will automatically shut off if a classroom is not being used. Fluorescent bulbs in classrooms and in the gymnasiums are being upgraded to energy efficient bulbs with even greater light.

Even cleaning products and equipment have not been spared from upgrades. The district is using microfiber mops and cloths that require less cleaning, hepa filtration vacuum cleaners that eliminates air borne dust, eco-friendly cleaning products and new floor machines that use less water and chemicals, Garuccio said.

Most of these upgrades don't even come at district - and taxpayer - expense, Pabis said. NYSERDA is fronting the district $1 million to make its buildings more energy efficient. The district will use the energy savings to reimburse NYSERDA over the next 18 years.

The Port Byron Central School District is also seeing technology upgrades to buildings to make them more energy efficient. Nearly $2 million of the $4.97 million capital project approved by voters in 2006 has been spent to overhaul and upgrade heating and air handling systems, replace indoor and outdoor lights, and install energy-efficient plumbing, among others, Superintendent Neil O'Brien said.

While the Southern Cayuga Central School District is not undergoing a capital project to upgrade its systems, district leaders are looking at conventional ways to save energy and money.

“We are taking a careful look at every system, and at every opportunity we are asking ourselves, 'Are we using our resources efficiently and responsibly, and where can we make changes that will also be good for the environment,'” Superintendent Mary Kay Worth said.

The district has reduced its bus runs from 13 to 11 to conserve on fuel, she said. Areas in both Emily Howland Elementary School and the Poplar Ridge campus, including the planetarium classroom, that are not being used daily have been powered down to limit the energy used to heat or light them.

“We need to look at how we are using our whole facility all day long,” she said, “and be sure that we are using the space efficiently - to maximize the use of the space - and to also save on energy.”

And at the Union Springs Central School District, where gas wells supplement fuel purchased from NYSEG at A.J. Smith Elementary School, the middle/high school and the bus garage, district leaders have turned their attention to transportation and ways to reduce associated costs, Superintendent Linda Rice said.

According to Transportation Supervisor Theresa Weaver, the district is now transporting students to A.J. Smith Elementary School from Cayuga Elementary School in the morning on four shuttles instead of seven from last year. That produces a savings of 10,248 miles and 1,138 gallons of gasoline each year.

In the afternoon, A.J. students hop onto six shuttles to Cayuga Elementary School instead of 11 buses that marked last year's runs. The district is saving 16,104 miles and 2,301 gallons of gasoline each year.

The district has also reduced one school day and one athletic bus run, merged with Southern Cayuga for some sports - the districts will split some of the away games to save on fuel - and all idle buses will be turned off.

“I think we're just trying to be fiscally responsible to our community, and certainly the board of education supports that,” Rice said. “We also need to be accountable. Our community needs to know that we are looking at these things.”

Staff writer Alyssa Sunkin can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 239 or alyssa.sunkin@lee.net