Energy savings could generate $18 million to fuel an overhaul of heating and cooling systems, windows, lighting and other systems in as many as 10 Richmond Public Schools buildings.

That’s the view of Richmond Assistant Superintendent Tommy Kranz, who plans to get started creating this kind of program to get critically needed work done in the next year or two.

He expects to begin development of the program this winter. He said it could take up to a year to put the program in place. The process would include selecting a company to conduct an energy study and prepare a contract that would list the work to be done and the energy savings it would provide.

Mr. Kranz said the $18 million is just “a back-of-the-envelope” estimate. He said the actual number of schools that could be improved and the amount of savings that could be generated would have to wait for the detailed study.

Under such a program, the school system would repay the cost of the work over a number of years based on guarantees from the selected company that the improvements would generate a certain amount of savings on the school system’s bills for natural gas and electricity.

This is the same type of program that was killed in December by Selena Cuffee-Glenn, the city’s chief administrative officer.

Last month, the Free Press reported that Ms. Cuffee-Glenn terminated a plan to use energy savings to undertake $13 million in improvements to various city buildings, ranging from City Hall to fire stations.

At the time, city press secretary Tammy Hawley told the Free Press that the Ms. Cuffee-Glenn terminated the program because it would tie up too much of the city’s limited borrowing capacity.

The city is close to its self-imposed debt ceiling, and Ms. Hawley stated that the city didn’t have the “the debt capacity to dedicate to this effort.”

However, the state law governing this kind of program explicitly bars such energy contracts from being treated as a debt. The law states: “Such contracts shall stipulate that the agreement does not constitute a debt, liability or obligation of the contracting entity (a state or local agency or government), or a pledge of the faith and credit of the contracting entity.”

That’s a key reason that the state and many localities have repeatedly used energy savings to fix their public buildings.

Ms. Cuffee-Glenn has not responded to a Free Press query about the law and the city’s terminated program.