An Alabama school county is waiting to hear their name called for a potential grant.
Chilton County Schools have applied for a grant from Alabama Power for a project to reduce energy spending in the county schools. The county hopes to switch all fluorescent lightbulbs in three of its schools to LED bulbs, those schools being Clanton Elementary, Jemison Elementary, and Maplesville High School.
Corey Clements is the Superintendent of Chilton County Schools. He said switching those three schools to LED lightbulbs could save around $1.5 million in the budget.
“We want to we want to create a better learning environment for all of our students, while at the same time creating energy savings for our system,” said Clements. “And our energy bills running anywhere from $150 to $200,000 a month for our system. And so, we wanted to look at ways to address that. And this was one of our proposals.”
Clements listed several benefits for the county if the proposal is accepted, including better learning conditions for students, saving significant money on energy, and getting the edge on a market headed towards LED lightbulbs being the most popular type of bulb purchased. Clements also added that working with Alabama Power allows the county to build partnerships with important local community members.
“It's getting harder and harder to get replacement fluorescent bulbs, as well as ballasts and replacement parts like that. And eventually, those will go out of production. And LED lighting will be your only option.” Clements noted. “So, the financial impact of that not only is going to be the cost of purchase and installation but also the anticipated energy savings of having LED lighting rather than traditional fluorescent lighting.”
These proposed changes hinge on Chilton County receiving the grant from Alabama Power. Clements said the grant will allow the county to take on this project that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. He mentions that he feels there is a good chance of being approved and is optimistic that the project will receive the funding.
“It's going to create a better learning environment for our students there, everything's going to be brighter, it's going to create a safer environment, every single day more well lit.” Clements said.
The recipients of the Alabama Power grants will be announced on June 15th.
