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Projects and Goals

Completed projects

• LED Phase 1 — Retrofitted older lighting technology with energy efficient LED lighting technology within 10 campus buildings.
• Central Steam Plant Energy Audit — Identified energy efficiency measures/projects at the Central Plant as either a natural gas measure or an electric measure.
• VFD Air Compressor — Replaced the Central Plant's primary compressor unit with an energy efficient VFD unit. Additionally, smart-metering was included for this unit.
• Central Plant VFD Vacuum Pump — Replaced the Central Plant's back-up vacuum pump unit with an energy efficient VFD unit.
• Central Plant Steam Insulation — Insulated steam piping lines as well as condensate piping lines throughout the Central Plant.
• Solar Rooftop Project — Provided the campus with solar PV systems across three campus building rooftops: Student Recreation Center South, Student Services Building, and Lothian Residence Hall.
• Entomology Building Lab Exhaust VFDs — Upgraded four rooftop exhaust fans and retrofitted with VFD equivalents.

Ongoing projects

• Central Plant Controls Upgrade — Upgrades and replaces antiquated control system devices and software and for valuable system feedback to operators. Additionally, this will add monitoring of critical equipment, utilities, and process for energy optimization. This project will ultimately provide reliability and safety for the Central Plant operation, increasing overall plant efficiency.
• Central Plant, Multiple VFD Projects — Retrofits 15 pumps/fans of different sizes with VFD's at the Central Plant. The project will improve energy efficiency and operations for the Central Plant.
• LED Phase 2 — Retrofits older lighting technology with energy efficient LED lighting technology within five campus buildings.
• Save by the Meter Program/Initiative — Places several electric smart-meters and several sub-metering systems across strategic campus locations/buildings. With these meters in place, energy baselines can be established, monitored, managed and efficiency can be optimized for greater energy savings, long-term. Network communications, dashboards, and integration to a centralized system for the meters are included.

Planned and future projects

• Campus Tunnels Steam Insulation — Insulates steam and condensate piping lines throughout the 5 major campus underground tunnels.
• Automated Boiler Blowdown — Automates the boiler blowdown process at the Central Plant. This project will reduce the energy required to heat the system, reduce make-up water consumption, and reduce overall boiler maintenance. Additionally, this will improve the safety and reliability of the process by eliminating manual intervention.  
• Exhaust Fan VFD Retrofit — Adds VFDs into current building exhaust fans connected to fume hoods that are running at a constant speed. By incorporating a VFD into the system, the exhaust fans can reduce their speed to match the air flow coming from the fume hoods rather than continuing to run at a constant speed. This will reduce energy usage by reducing the amount of time the Exhaust Fans are running at higher speeds.
• Replacing Chilled Water Valves — Replaces chilled water valves that are allowing excess chilled water to enter the cooling coils of a building's chilled water system. By replacing them with Belimo Energy Valves, sensors will reduce the amount of chilled water entering the cooling cools making them more efficient. This reduces the amount of energy required to re-chill water in the campus chilled water loop.
• Airflow Optimization for Lab Spaces — Changes certain lab spaces setpoints for air changes per hour in the buildings control system. These changes would be applied based on specific lab spaces and the time of day to reduce the amount of time the space has to continue cooling outside air. Energy will be saved by reducing the amount of time outside air needs to be cooled when entering a building.
• Occupancy Sensors for Fume Hoods — Adds occupancy sensors to fume hoods. This sensor will reduce the speed at which the fume hood is removing air from the building to a standard setpoint in case it is left at a higher setpoint after experiments are completed. Energy will be saved by reducing the amount of air-conditioned air that is removed from the building from these higher setpoints.
• Split Systems in Server Rooms — Adds a system which will turn off certain air handlers and their exhaust fans connected to server rooms during non-peak hours of the day. During these non-peak hours, the server room will be reliant on the building's server room air conditioning without the air handlers. Energy will be saved by turning off the air handlers during these off-peak hours.

Who we work with