Public Buildings Commissioner, Josh Morse, submitted a response to questions regarding the fossil fuel boiler replacements for two schools – Franklin Elementary and Newton South High School, that were approved last week. According to the response, in terms of Franklin, the cost to convert Franklin to electric is “roughly $3.5, and that equipment would not, and could not, be sized to meet the future undefined needs of the new or renovated school.” He added that by converting Franklin now to electric heating and cooling, the money would be “essentially thrown away in 3-5 years” because the equipment would need to be oversized due to the thermal inefficiency of the current envelope.
Similarly, with regard to the NSHS boiler replacement, the Commissioner reports that there are two large gas-fire boilers that are necessary to service 75% of the school and that this past winter they installed a “very inefficient temporary portable boiler” used to get through the remainder of the heating season. He added that “the cost to convert Newton South to fully electric heating and cooling is estimated to be between $25M and $30M, and this is without factoring in the need for increased Eversource distribution and transformers, an increased electrical service, switchgear, and building electrical distribution, as well as replacements of the emergency generators to increase their capacity to sustain school operations during power outages. Additionally, the aforementioned cost does not include investments to the building envelope to air seal and improve thermal performance. These investments could quite easily reach $200 per square foot or more, which yields another $78M investment….” Read the full memo here.