LESS electricity consumption means less harm to the environment and reduced power and gasoline bills.
With this in mind, the Division of Energy is set to launch this coming school year an energy conservation program called Energy Patrol. Students will check whether their school’s lights, computers, copier machines and air-conditioning units are properly turned off after school hours.
Thelma B. Inos, director of the Division of Energy, yesterday said the school-based program’s four main goals are to enhance energy conservation, reduce energy consumption, reduce taxpayers’ burden and encourage site-based monitoring of energy use.
Inos said the selected students would wear emergency vests when they patrol the school facilities. They would be accompanied by an adult supervisor.
The Division of Energy is currently working with the Public School System for the implementation of the program this coming school year.
Inos said both agencies need the approval of parents to allow their children to stay for about 20 to 30 minutes more after school hours for the days that they will be participating in the energy conservation program.
“We are encouraging parents to allow their kids to participate in this program. This will not only enhance the kids’ discipline at school, but at home as well. Who knows, the kids might be the ones to teach their parents and adult relatives to conserve energy,” Inos told Variety.
Different sets of students would be assigned every school day to patrol the school facilities.
The program, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, may also give incentives to the schools that will have the largest power bill savings. Energy Patrol has been established in other U.S. states and on Guam.
“We are happy that this program will also be launched in the CNMI. We may start with those schools with the highest energy consumption,” said Inos.
Countries around the world have stepped up efforts to combat global warming, which would result in more frequent and prolonged droughts, extensive crop failures, extinction of plant and animal species and flooding of low-lying coastal areas.
Global warming is caused by the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere —carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, methane and ozone—which causes an unprecedented rise in the earth’s temperature.
Because energy production accounts for such a large percentage of greenhouse gas emissions, experts are saying that many of the actions needed to combat global warming should focus on using energy more efficiently or by energy conservation.
Inos said the energy conservation program is also in line with Gov. Juan N. Babauta’s directive on Jan. 31 which ordered all government agencies to “to reduce electric costs by turning off all unnecessary lighting, equipment and air-conditioning during the day and after hours.”
