Eight years after Mike Tarantino pulled out the stops trying to reduce electricity use across the Poway Unified School District, he still lives with trepidation that a heat wave will spike air conditioning use, or a cold snap will prompt an outbreak of furtive space heaters.
Then electrical use and costs will surge, and the effect will be lasting, making up, for example, more than $38,000 of a total $70,000 one-month electric bill for Del Norte High School last year.
“It is a nasty tier,” Tarantino said.
The higher costs are known as “demand” charges, and Tarantino has done much to avoid them.
