CHAMPAIGN — The Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation awarded Champaign's school district three grants totalling $216,500 for some of the energy-efficiencies being built into the new Carrie Busey Elementary School.

The school is under construction in Savoy.

District grant writer Sue Schumacher said the grants will help make up for the extra cost of installing energy-efficient equipment. If the district pays less for things like geothermal heating and cooling and heating water with solar panels upfront, she said, those systems will pay for themselves sooner.

One $75,000 grant will help the district pay for designing a LEED-certified building and going through the process of making sure all its energy-efficient systems are installed and working correctly.

"It's a very important part of the process that provides an additional step that the district can be sure that they're getting what they paid for and it's operating as intended," said architect Stuart Brodsky, of OWP/P Canon Design who worked on the building's design.

A $90,000 grant will help pay for the school's geothermal system, which is expected to save about 54 percent of energy, as compared with the least efficient system required.

And finally, a $51,000 will help the district pay for a system that will heat 62 percent of the school's hot water with solar energy. That grant will pay for up to 60 percent of the system, according to a release from the district.

"This is a system that uses the sun to help heat the hot water in the building," Brodsky said. "There are a series of panels on the roof with water circulating through them."

The system means the district will pay less to operate hot water heaters.

"(The grant is) helping defray the initial construction cost of that kind of system, similar to geothermal grant that's helping defray that initial cost," Brodsky said.

Brodsky said the grants will help the district be more energy efficient.

"It's a very good thing for the district," Brodsky said. "They're doing a great job of providing leadership to the community to design buildings that will provide energy efficiency into the future, and they're being good stewards of the environment."

While these are the first grants for the new Carrie Busey school specifically, Schumacher said, they're a part of the district's larger plan to use energy wisely. And in the letter the district received awarding the grant for the solar water heating system, the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation acknowledged that.

"It's really part of a much larger plan," she said.