Conservation of electricity is an essential need of the hour but this entire concept has gone for a toss in a school in Massachusetts in the US. The school has been lit for about a year and a half since the district is unable to turn off the roughly 7,000 lights in the large building. The smart lights of Minnechaug Regional High School have been glowing since August of 2021 and despite several attempts to switch them off over the last year and a half, all attempts have gone in vain.
This bizarre problem is a result of a computer glitch as the software that controls the smart lights crashed on August 21, 2021. The constantly lit-up school has invariably caused a dent in the pockets of taxpayers. The Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District’s associate superintendent of finance, Aaron Osborne, told NBC News, “We are quite conscious this is costing taxpayers a considerable amount of money. And we have been making every effort to remedy this issue."
According to Osborne, the high school employs extremely efficient fluorescent and LED lighting. Additionally, to turn off some of the outdoor lights, staff members have turned off breakers that are not connected to the main system and, where possible, teachers have manually removed the bulbs from classroom fixtures. Despite these measures, Osborne says the school is costing taxpayers almost thousands of dollars per month in electricity bills.
However, there is some hope at the end of the tunnel. The parts required to replace the system at the school have finally arrived from the plant in China, according to Paul Mustone, president of the Reflex Lighting Group. They anticipate installing the new system towards the end of February.
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