Lincoln school board approves equipment to lower heating, cooling costs

On Tuesday, the LPS Board of Education voted unanimously to pass a proposal to add cooling equipment to three high schools.

They are Lincoln North Star, Southeast and Southwest High.

LPS Director of Operations Scott Wieskamp said their heating and cooling systems extract water from underground wells.

“The earth is at a constant temperature…and we reject heat into it and we extract heat from it, depending on whether we’re in the heating season or the cooling season,” Wieskamp said.

But he said they’ve noticed the well field temperatures have been increasing, making it harder for equipment to operate, which drives up costs.

Tuesday night’s proposal equips each high school with a device that actually helps lower the well temperatures.

“As we bring that water in from…the earth, it heats up as it runs through the system,” Wieskamp said.  “And so as we inject…that heat back into the earth, we’re going to temper that rejected water to a cooler temperature back into the earth and hopefully we’ll lower that earth temperature over time.”

Wieskamp said it’ll cost $1.1 million dollars to buy the equipment for all three schools, but said it’ll save LPS money in the long run.  He said the conservative estimate put that around $60,000 a year.

He said the new equipment will be installed in all three schools before the school year is over.

Wieskamp said the costs are covered under the current budget, so LPS is not looking for additional tax funding for it.