Bartlesville Public Schools will receive an incentive check for $33,352.21 from Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO) for participation in PSO’s Smart Schools program.

Smart Schools is offered by PSO to help schools reduce operating costs by identifying and implementing energy efficiency improvement projects. The amount of the incentive is determined by the total amount of energy that will be saved through those improvements.

Bartlesville Schools earned its incentive for completing a major high-efficiency lighting project that involved the retrofitting of more than 4,200 light fixtures. The new lighting will conserve an estimated 264,450 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year and is expected to reduce the school system’s annual electric bill by approximately $18,500 per year over the next ten years.

"Reducing expenditures is extremely important to the Bartlesville Public School District. By becoming more energy efficient, we are able to do that. In turn, we can put the money saved back into our classrooms where it will directly benefit our students. We appreciate PSO and their commitment to energy efficiency and education. It is a great program and we are honored to be part of it," said Dr. Gary W. Quinn, Superintendent of the Bartlesville Public School District.

"We identified a real need for an energy efficiency program that addresses the specific needs of our larger customers, especially as budgets are spread thin," said Michael Gordon, PSO Consumer Programs coordinator. "By partnering with Bartlesville

Public Schools to reduce energy costs, their valuable resources can be used for other needed projects."

PSO, a unit of American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP), is an electric utility company serving more than 530,000 customers in eastern and southwestern Oklahoma. With headquarters in Tulsa, PSO has 4,321 megawatts of generating capacity and provides electricity to 230 cities and towns across a service area encompassing 30,000 square miles. News releases and other information about PSO can be found on the World Wide Web at PSOklahoma.com.