Sacramento Municipal Utilities District (SMUD) officials will present a check for $250,674 to the Sacramento City Unified School District’s Board of Education tonight – an energy efficiency incentive to recognize the district’s commitment to conservation.

During 2010, SCUSD partnered with SMUD to identify opportunities for reducing energy costs. From this partnership came an aggressive lighting improvement project that upgraded lighting systems in 50 campuses while cutting energy and maintenance costs.

Specifically, SCUSD staff replaced T-12 fluorescent lighting technology with more efficient T-8 fluorescents. The new fixtures will reduce the district’s energy consumption by more than 1.6 million kilowatts a year. According to SMUD, that’s enough energy to power nearly 150 households for a full year. Also, this upgrade will save the district more than $200,000 annually.

SMUD also calculates that by switching to better technology the district is cutting carbon dioxide emissions by more than 1.2 million pounds per year – the equivalent of removing more than 230 cars from the road or planting 31,000 trees.

“I am thrilled that our partnership with SMUD has made ‘going green’ payoff not only for our schools, but for the entire community,” said SCUSD Superintendent Jonathan Raymond. “This is a win-win.”

Raymond added that SCUSD will be reinvesting the incentive money into future cost-saving environmental measures.