What’s it say when students can find millions of dollars in energy efficiency savings during internship programs? Can you say “low hanging fruit?”

And, the really good news is that there are still plenty of ideas for you to capitalize on.

That is the lesson from 26 MBA students after they spent the summer with 26 Fortune 500 companies as part of the Climate Corps project sponsored by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).

Students from top-ranking business schools each identified energy saving projects that saved money, cut energy use and reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In each case, students came up with the green ideas that:

• saved the participating companies $54 million over the life of the projects initiated
• cut 160 million kilowatt hours of energy use a year — enough to power 14,000 homes, and
• avoided creating 100,000 metric tons of GHG emissions each year — the equivalent of taking 12,000 SUVs off the road.

The encouraging part of these savings is that the Climate Corps students proved that there are plenty of no-cost and low-cost, money-saving projects that companies can adopt right away by upgrading lighting, computer equipment and heating and cooling systems. Energy-saving projects included:

• taking advantage of rebates companies are overlooking. That’s how Climate Corps fellow Neelam Bhatia found a $50,000 rebate for cooling equipment purchased by Advanced Micro Devices.
• cutting IT’s energy usage by adopting virtualization and other energy cutting measures. That’s how Mark Braby found $3.4 million in savings for Raytheon’s Network Centric Systems.
• increasing the temperature in data centers. Sara Shapiral proved to Cisco that easing off just a bit on the air conditioning can safely save $1.8 million.
• combining operation centers. David Fox saved North Carolina Central University $74,000 a year by proving it was cheaper to house students in one or two buildings during the summer rather than let them stay spread out in all the dorms, and
• retrofitting lighting systems. Ryan Whisnant developed a plan that cut SunGard’s energy bill by 25% with a mix of lighting and HVAC upgrades.

This was the second year of the Climate Corps project. EDF reports that 97% of the projects identified by students in 2008 have been completed or are still in operation.

Tags: Advanced Micro Devices, Cisco, Climate Corps, EDF, energy savings, Raytheon, SunGard