Private school seeking zero energy impact

MURRAY — It's a cold, gray, winter day, and the land Roi Maufas and Alyssa Kay are standing on is muddy and bleak — just dirt, a fence that's falling over, and a grove of barren trees lining the far wall. But Maufas and Kay see enormous potential here: this is where they plan to make history.

This is the site where the state's first net-zero energy school — Sego Lily School — will be built. The building, designed by Maufus and Kay, will be constructed mostly out of shipping containers, generate all of its energy through wind and solar power and double as an emergency shelter if disaster strikes. Maufus and Kay hope the school can revolutionize standard approaches to construction and be the first of many similar structures yet to come.

"We've got this budget crisis, and what we've realized is that we spend so much money every year just running all of our schools, just keeping the lights on or keeping the schools warm or cold, and all of that is just money going down the drain," Kay says. "If we were to design those schools right in the first place, we could be saving that money and spending it on paying teachers and buying better books. We're hoping the new Sego Lily School will be an example of that."

The private school, which currently has 45 students between the ages of 4 and 18, has plans to complete its new building in two phases to make room for 150 students. The first phase, which is expected to begin in March and conclude in September, will be 6,000 square feet created from pods of shipping containers grouped together. A wind turbine on the campus, along with solar panels, will generate electricity for the school, which will minimize its energy usage through lights that automatically turn off when the building's natural light is sufficient.

The school will be heated and cooled by a geothermal system that uses groundwater, Kay says, and a layer of 10-12 inches of foam on the outside of the containers for insulation will cut down on energy, too.

The first phase is expected to cost $650,000, and the second phase, a 14,000-square-foot addition, is expected to cost another $1.5 million. Though the school — which is currently housed in a 3,000-square-foot rambler — expects to make up for its initial investment by not having to pay any energy bills in the long run, it's been difficult to raise money or get a loan to get the project off of the ground.