Students from Westbrook Walnut Grove Public Schools Benchmark City's Buildings with B3 Energy Benchmarking System

_{Submitted by Lindsay Wimmer, 5/14/14}

The Youth Energy Summit (YES!) Team Westbrook-Walnut Grove Public Schools entered building and utility data into the B3 Energy Benchmarking System for ten buildings in the City of Westbrook to learn about energy use, as well as help the city better track energy use and utility costs in public buildings.

The YES! Team is a group of nine motivated students that are interested in creating community environmental and economic vitality through hands on projects, so B3 Energy Benchmark data entry was the perfect project.The B3 Energy Benchmarking System is a State administered program to benchmark public buildings in the State of Minnesota. The B3 Energy Benchmarking system is free for government entities to use that compares public building benchmarks throughout Minnesota and generates reports to help public entities better understand energy use within buildings. Learn more about B3 and how to get started with the system here: http://www.cleanenergyresourceteams.org/b3. Manage or create a B3 Energy Benchmarking Account here: https://mn.b3benchmarking.com/.

The project was completed through a partnership between the Southwest Regional Development Commission, the Westbrook-Walnut Grove Public Schools, and the City of Westbrook-Walnut Grove. The first step in the process to enter information was to gather information about the buildings in the City of Westbrook. The City Clerk provided building information, such as square footage, types of heating and cooling system, and the date of occupancy of each building to initially create the City of Westbrook’s B3 Energy Benchmarking System’s accounts, as well as gave the students access 12 months of utility bill information. Katie Steen, Westbrook City Clerk, said “It was a simple process to get the information together for the students to enter. It took less than 3 hours for me to gather all the information and help the students when they had a question.” Then, the Southwest Regional Development Commission taught the students how to enter data into the system. The whole project took 4 class periods and 10 hours of time to teach the students how to enter in 12 months of public building utility data. The City Clerk spent 3 hours compiling the information, and the students spent 7 hours on data entry. The process to facilitate the data entry for the students was easy according to Drew Hage, Southwest Regional Development Commission Planner.

According to Pat Merrick, the YES! Team Teacher, “I cannot think of a better real work example for students to learn than the B3 database project.” The students learned how to read utility bills and understand energy use in buildings, specifically the energy use in their own cities’ buildings. The data entry process was easy for the city as well. Now, the city is able to generate energy and utility reports about its public buildings energy use to better moderate costs and track if improvements need to be made or how those improvements performed. Now the City of Westbrook is fully up-to-date in the B3 Energy Benchmarking System. Pat’s class will continue to keep the B3 Energy Benchmarking System up to date by entering in the necessary data each fall and spring semester.

Overall, this project was a win-win for the students and the city. The students learned more about energy and the city will have a better sense for their energy use to make more sound economic and environmental decisions around its energy use.