The Florida Solar Energy Center is playing a key role in the new Utility Report 
Card program that will help America's schools lower their energy bills and save 
millions of dollars that can be used for educational purposes, while teaching 
students about energy use.

The program, which was announced by Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham on April 5, 
is a cooperative effort between FSEC, the Florida Department of Environmental 
Protection, Walt Disney World Co., the U.S. Department of Energy, Orange County 
Public Schools, Progress Energy and Orlando Utilities Commission.

Utility Report Cards enable school officials to receive monthly comparison data on 
their energy use.  According to Safvat Kalaghchy, FSECs Director of Computing and 
Information Technologies, the Florida Energy Office funded us to create software 
similar to what Disney uses to track energy use at their parks.  Weve already 
started this work on the 184 schools and educational centers in a pilot program in 
Orange County, Florida, and we look forward to expanding this project into a 
national effort.

Kalaghchy explained that he and his staff worked with Progress Energy to collect 
the monthly utility bills for the Orange County schools (which spend about $55 
million on energy each year), then created a database to hold the uniform data from 
the utility companies serving the area.  Once we had access to the bills, he 
says, we set up a website where we post this information, clearly showing the 
amount of each month's bill and whether it was an increase or decrease from the 
previous month or from the same month a year ago.  We also have charts which can 
easily be used to show graphs comparing energy use for all the schools in a 
district or for just individual schools.

This unique program offers two-fold benefit to schools.  It gives administrators an 
easy way to track their progress in saving energy, and it also creates an 
opportunity for students to get involved and learn more about energy use.  
Educational materials are being developed for use in the classroom to accompany the 
website data.

Philip Fairey, FSEC's Interim Director, explained that the ultimate goal of this 
project is for schools to be able to achieve significant energy savings, using part 
of that energy budget for textbooks and computers, classroom supplies and even 
teacher salaries,  It's a classic "win-win" situation  the schools save money they 
can use for other things, and the students get real-world knowledge of energy use.

The Utility Report Card can be viewed online at http://www.utilityreportcards.com.  
As more schools become involved in the project, FSEC will expand the database to 
allow for detailed tracking and comparisons nationwide.

The Florida Solar Energy Center, a research institute of the University of Central 
Florida, is the largest and most active state-supported energy research center in 
the country.  Current research activities include solar water and pool heating, 
solar electric and distributed generation systems, energy-efficient buildings, 
alternative transportation systems, hydrogen fuel, and other energy areas. For more 
information, call the FSEC Public Information Office at (321) 638-1015 or go to 
http://www.fsec.ucf.edu.