The Barker Learning Center on the Hiwassee College Campus houses the administrative offices of the college.  These offices observed a workday from 6:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. this summer in an effort to conserve energy.

Hiwassee College has partnered with the Tennessee Valley Authority and EnerNOC, a demand response energy management solutions provider, to implement an energy savings initiative that is having significant results.  EnerNOC works with utility companies to curtail non-essential energy usage during critical periods of imbalance between electrical supply and demand on the power grid.

TVA has to fire up costly backup power plants or buy expensive power produced in other regions of the country in order to meet peak demand loads.  Whenever Hiwassee College and other large users of electrical energy can cut their power usage during a peak demand event, it saves TVA and the utility companies a considerable amount of money and resources.  EnerNOC is able to pass along these significant savings in the form of credits on utility bills to its partners for their participation.

Beginning with the first Monday following graduation, Hiwassee College administrative offices observed summer hours.  The workday for this group of employees began at 6 a.m. and ended at 2 p.m.  This measure was adopted to conserve energy used in running air conditioning units during the hottest part of the day.  This “2012 Hiwassee College Energy Conservation Experiment” has carefully tracked energy usage between May 7 and August 5 and will compare it to historical data for that same time period.

Richard Woodard, Director of Facilities at Hiwassee College stated, “The early work schedule was tough at first, but once we saw the significant savings on our electric bill it made getting up before sunrise worth the effort.  It also feels good to know that Hiwassee College is doing its part to conserve energy.”