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Plug Load Management for K-12 and Higher Education
We Know These Buildings Because We Work in Them Every Day
A school or campus isn't one building. It's classrooms, libraries, cafeterias, gyms, offices and, on a campus, residence halls, each with its own schedule and its own equipment. BERT controllers are installed space by space, so the system matches how your buildings are actually used, not a single building-wide schedule.
The Spaces, and What BERT Does in Each
Classrooms & Instructional Spaces
Smartboards, projectors, charging carts and classroom AV equipment often stay powered through nights, weekends, summer and holiday breaks. BERT schedules them around the academic calendar, not a fixed clock.
Libraries & Media Centers
Shared workstations, displays and equipment often sit idle after the last class of the day.
Cafeterias & Break Rooms
Vending machines, coffee equipment, and refrigerators holding non-perishable products, or empty ones, often run around the clock regardless of meal periods.
Gyms & Multipurpose Spaces
Equipment and displays are used for a fraction of the hours a gym is open: practices, games and events, not a full school day.
Administrative & Front Offices
Workstations and displays keep business hours on paper but, in practice, often don't.
Laptop and Device Charging Carts
Carts often stay powered long after devices are fully charged.
Residence Halls & Common AreasHigher Education
Shared-space equipment and common-area displays run on a very different occupancy pattern than academic buildings.
The Challenges We Hear: Some Familiar to Every Facility, Some Specific to Schools and Campuses
Common to Most Facilities We Work With
- Budget constraints, with every dollar saved mattering. Two ways to buy: own the system outright, or Smart Energy Suite, which gets BERT installed with little or no upfront capital.
- An aging BAS, or none at all. BERT runs standalone by design — it's not waiting on a BAS to reach the plug loads a BAS was never built to manage.
- More plug loads every year — charging carts, displays, classroom AV — without a system redesign every time the device count grows.
- Buildings used only part of the week since COVID. This is BERT's core fit pattern: your facilities team sets the schedule around however your spaces are actually used now, hybrid or not.
- Flexible staff schedules. Every controller has its own override, available to anyone on site outside the schedule — press and hold until the light changes and you hear a click.
- Deferred-maintenance backlogs competing for the same capital. BERT doesn't fix deferred maintenance — it's a comparatively low-capital, fast-to-deploy measure that doesn't have to compete with larger infrastructure projects for budget, and Smart Energy Suite removes it from that competition entirely.
- Fast capital approval in some districts, long procurement and red tape in others. Both an outright purchase and Smart Energy Suite fit; for a formal bid or spec process, the Core Guide Specification and standard SOW support it.
- A large IT department in some districts, third-party IT on call in others. Either way, BERT's footprint is light: an outbound-only connection on your own Wi-Fi network, with no BAS changes required to run standalone.
- Aging facilities, often still cooled room by room. Central HVAC works well in some buildings; older ones often rely on PTAC or window AC units instead — exactly the equipment BERT's Inline controllers are built to schedule.
More Specific to Schools
- School-year schedule complexity. A school has more distinct "off" states than a typical office — nights, weekends, holiday breaks, summer, after-school programs and sports — a bigger and more complex off-hours opportunity than most building types.
- A district or campus is a portfolio, not a building. K-12 districts and multi-building campuses are naturally multi-site from day one, with one decision-maker across many buildings.
- New construction vs. an aging building just getting by. Retrofits use the plug-in 110 AP or hardwired Inline controllers; new construction will use the 110 WO wall outlet once it ships (preliminary, not yet available — planned late Q4 2026).
What This Looks Like in Practice
Higher Education: Space Utilization
At one university, facilities staff suspected that some spaces, like offices used by traveling faculty, were rarely used. BERT's device-level data showed which devices in which spaces were actually being used over time, and which weren't. The university used the same data to renegotiate its copier rental agreements: underused machines were cancelled, and others were moved to where they were needed. The energy savings were real, but the data proved almost as valuable.
K-12: Equipment Life as a Secondary Benefit
One New York school district put its classroom window AC units on a schedule: off overnight, on again before the school day. Before that, the units had been running all night after the building's main ventilation shut down. The district told us the schedule also ended a recurring condensation problem, and that its window units have lasted far longer than they used to.
Districts Already Running BERT
Jersey City Public Schools
One of BERT's largest deployments: 3,800 BERT devices across 44 buildings and 5.5 million square feet of educational space, delivered with DCO Energy as part of the district's Energy Savings Improvement Program.
Waterbury Public Schools
1,187 Smart Plugs delivering 201,247 kWh in annual savings; in a 14-measure NORESCO performance contract, BERT was one of the first measures completed and had the fastest payback of all 14.
Hoke County Schools
638 Smart Plugs across 12 schools and the Board of Education building, delivered with Brady Trane as part of a district performance contract; about 90,000 kWh saved a year (published study).
Magnolia School District
520 Smart Plugs across nine schools, identified during an investment-grade audit with ENGIE Services U.S. (now OpTerra), including more than 100 Smart TVs coordinated with district IT so overnight updates aren't interrupted. BERT reduced the baseline load of the controlled devices by 31%.
Fairfield Area School District
250 Smart Plugs, delivered with Siemens as part of a performance contract; overnight standby plug-load energy cost cut 65%, devices off more than 5,700 hours a year.
UC San Diego
A California Energy Commission–funded demonstration with 2,500 BERT Smart Plugs across 10 campus buildings.
Your savings depend on how many devices we control, what they are, and when your building is empty.
What's Typically Controlled
Vending machines and break-room equipment, laptop and device charging carts, printers, copiers, classroom projectors and smartboards, water coolers, window AC and PTAC units where applicable, workstations and displays in administrative areas, and refrigerators holding non-perishable products, or empty ones. Never life-safety, emergency or security systems, servers and network equipment, or anything that must stay on.
How It Fits Your Project
BERT works standalone or alongside an existing building automation system through BERT Connect (BACnet/IP) when your project includes it. BERT is commonly delivered as part of a performance contract alongside an ESCO or energy partner, but doesn't require one.