Steven Gremillion spends his day hunting.

The energy manager at Clear Creek Independent School District stalks the hogs in odd places. He has found them in superfluous vending machine lights and in the form of inefficient bulbs hiding in exit signs.

There are 19,000 computers in the district, humming, buzzing and feeding on the power grid like hungry mosquitoes. Gremillion has swatted them down.

He’s found energy hogs in the outdoor lighting system. He found them in the boiler and the chiller, which, at times, were waging unnecessary and costly battles against one another.

Every find is a small triumph for Gremillion — one small step toward helping the public school district meet a state mandate to reduce energy consumption 5 percent each year from now through 2013.

Across the state, public school districts are passing plans to reduce energy consumption. It’s an effort to comply with a state law passed in 2007 to help the state reduce the amount of power placed on the energy grid, especially during peak demand periods.

Predicting an energy shortfall, legislators passed House Bill 3693 to reduce energy consumption and avoid rolling blackouts and brownouts.

The law requires public school districts and universities, among other government agencies, to adopt energy efficiency programs.

Besides the law, school districts are motivated by soaring energy prices. In Galveston County, Dickinson, Friendswood, Galveston and Texas City school districts spent a combined $6.8 million on electricity in 2007.

Many of the county’s school districts have already passed plans. Some are written on a single page. They call for vague changes like revising maintenance and operations procedures, evaluating energy consumption during unoccupied hours and buying new appliances.

Other districts, like Clear Creek, Texas City and Dickinson, have used the mandate as an opportunity to revamp the way teachers, students and administrators look at an energy consumption.

Gremillion, on the job since November, has changed the way the district tracks energy, uses energy and teaches about energy.

He regularly visits science classrooms to extol the virtues of turning off lights.

He’s made a deal with soda and snack companies to switch off the lights in vending machines. He’s replacing all of the incandescent light bulbs in the district’s 633 exit signs with light-emitting-diode lights, which consume 95 percent less energy.

He’d like to replace every incandescent bulb in the district, but that might require a bond election worth several million dollars, he said.

So far, energy consumption is down 2.5 percent from last year.

“It’s a lot of thinking outside the box,” Gremillion said. “The maintenance department keeps things running. I just try to figure out how to make it run more efficiently.”

Energy Savers

Buying light-emitting-diode bulbs and energy-efficient appliances can strain a district’s budget. But some districts have devised ways to save energy without spending a dime, including:

•Turning off lights in classrooms that are empty for more than five minutes;

•Setting thermostats at 74 degrees on hot days and 70 degrees on cool days;

•Shutting down all computers and copiers at the end of the day;

•Banning personal refrigerators and space heaters; and

•Consolidating after-school activities.

Some districts are asking students and teachers to help.

Every Clear Creek school has an “Energy Action Team.” Those teams — consisting of students, staff and teachers — are in charge of helping reduce energy consumption and notifying Gremillion when they spot an energy hog.

The Galveston public school district is planning to initiate an energy-reduction contest between campuses and officers, offering incentives for the highest energy reduction percentages.

“We hope to grow a generation of energy savers,” Gremillion said.