Cache County School District modernizes facilities through guaranteed savings

Like many K-12 school districts, Cache County School District faced increasing pressure to conserve energy, reduce costs and address facility needs across its schools. While district leaders recognized opportunities to improve building performance through measures such as LED lighting upgrades, limited internal resources made it difficult to advance and manage large-scale projects. The district also faced deferred maintenance, aging infrastructure, inconsistent facility conditions and building code concerns.

Johnson Controls conducted a comprehensive facility audit to identify opportunities that extended beyond traditional energy-saving measures. Following the assessment, Cache County School District implemented a self-funding performance contract designed to support facility improvements through guaranteed energy and operational savings.

The project included district-wide LED lighting and lighting controls, new and upgraded Metasys Building Automation Systems, building envelope improvements, upgraded fire and carbon monoxide alarm systems, air conditioning for two high school auditoriums, plug load control and electrical power factor correction, swimming pool operational improvements and new 485.5kW photovoltaic solar systems. The initiative also supported classroom improvements at older facilities while helping address deferred maintenance needs across the district.

The self-funding performance contract supports infrastructure modernization across 24 schools and is guaranteed to generate more than $16 million in energy and operational savings over 20 years. The project has also helped the district secure more than $750,000 in grants and rebates, creating additional financial value while supporting long-term facility improvements.

The modernization initiative is expected to help create more comfortable, safe and effective learning environments while addressing deferred maintenance needs and improving facility consistency across the district. Energy-saving measures and system upgrades are projected to deliver:

• More than $16 million in guaranteed energy and operational savings over 20 years
• More than 12 million kWh of electrical avoidance
• More than 4,500 kW of demand avoidance
• More than 250,000 therms of natural gas avoidance
• More than 10,000 metric tons of CO₂ avoidance equivalent to over 1 million gallons of gasoline consumed

While implementation was still underway at the time of the case study, district leaders reported early operational improvements, including significantly improved electrical power factor performance.

Cache County School District is a public K-12 school district in northern Utah serving over 18,000 students across 24 schools, including four high schools, one alternative high school, three middle schools and 17 elementary schools.