Ferndale Schools

Release Date: August 31, 2009

As part of Ferndale School District’s ongoing commitment to energy conservation, the district is pleased to announce the availability of a free online energy-tracking tool. The free website, named GreenQuest, is a personal energy dashboard that enables community members to track and analyze the energy use for their home or place of business.

According to Aaron Kombol, Director of Special Projects, the district is providing GreenQuest to the community in order to educate, raise awareness, promote energy conservation and to highlight the district’s own energy conservation efforts which have produced over $350,000 in cost avoidance.

Linked from Ferndale School District’s main web page at http://www.ferndale.wednet.edu/drupal/ community members can track their energy use and cost; compare their home’s figures with friends and neighbors; evaluate energy saving projects; track their carbon footprint; analyze energy use with AccuWeather weather data; and as an option, obtain an ENERGY STAR building rating (for commercial buildings). Users will be asked to create their own logins to track their projects. The service is free for community members and is safe and secure—no confidential user information (account numbers, etc.) are entered into GreenQuest.

Ferndale School District Energy Manager, Tony Torretta, is a strong proponent of energy tracking: “We use an energy management software program to track the utility bills for all district buildings and have found it to be extremely valuable. When you want to save energy, the first step is to track your usage. With GreenQuest, we’re giving every household and business in the district a tool to do the same thing.”

GreenQuest is powered by EnergyCAP® software, an energy efficiency software leader for thirty years. Good Steward Software, based in State College, PA, publishes both GreenQuest and EnergyCAP.

For more information contact:
Aaron Kombol, Director of Special Projects, 360/383-9215
Tony Torretta, Energy Manager, 383-9347
Tammy Bengen, Public Information Officer, 383-9207