Building Energy Savings One Building at a Time

Up here in Rochester, we enjoy ourselves a good summer. The advantages are quite numerous. For one, we get to remember what sunscreen smells like. We can even boldly display our coolest pair of sunglasses outside at 7pm, and not receive judgmental looks from passersby. Best of all, we no longer regret having decided against permanent residence in Florida!

On the University of Rochester campus however, summer often brings about not beach balls and surfboards, but bricks and steel. With thousands of students far from school, both in body and mind, UniversityFacilities and Services often hurries to finish necessary construction and maintenance over the 158 buildings  that constitute the University. This summer, there are two new additions being worked on for the River Campus. Overlooking the Genesee river is O’Brien Hall, a new residential hall located adjacent to the Anderson and Wilder towers, and it will be opening this Fall for undergraduates. Located in view of Wilson Commons is the Raymond F. LeChase building, which will soon be the new home for the Warner School.

There is natural concern over whether or not all of this new infrastructure can be raised in an energy-efficient manner. According to the Department of Energy, over 40% of energy consumed in the U.S. comes from buildings alone (the rest comes from industries and transportation). According to United States Energy Secretary and UR alumnus StevenChu, “Deploying energy efficiency in our buildings, vehicles, and industries creates jobs, grows markets for American-made products, reduces energy bills for families and businesses, and makes the American economy more competitive.” Not only this, but cutting back from using non-renewable sources of energy is environmentally beneficial. The less coal is used for energy, the less greenhouse gases will occupy our atmosphere. The less nuclear energy is used, the less hazardous pollutants we need to make room for.

In order to help address these concerns, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) has a variety of programs that help promote reducing energy consumption, promoting the use of renewable energy sources, and protecting the environment. Some of these programs provide direct monetary incentive for organizations, such as the University of Rochester, to engage in energy-efficient projects. The incentives are generally awarded as rebates, and keeping account of these rebates is a useful tool in measuring progress towards reducing energy consumption.

The good news is that the University has maintained a stellar record when it comes to addressing the need to conserve energy. Since 2005, the university has had a whopping 53 energy projects, and has been awarded over $1.4 million in rebates from NYSERDA! Most recently, the University was awarded a $230,000 check for its LEED Gold certified Saunders Research Building. One of the core elements of the design is exemplified by the building’s “daylight harvesting” systems. The building’s East-West orientation, extensive window architecture, and open floor plan are all designed to bring in more natural light into the interior of the building, thereby reducing the need for artificial lighting.

The Saunders building is also equipped with sensors that control lighting based upon how much natural light is already available, and whether or not a room is occupied. Across campus, similar occupancy sensors which control lighting are an increasing sight as they shine (no pun intended) at preventing the waste of electricity. In fact, in 2010 the University applied for, and received, a NYSERDA rebate of around $800 for its efforts in installing such sensors in the Susan B. Anthony building on the River Campus. 

While this may seem like a paltry sum compared to awards for larger building construction projects, it is important to note that the University has been making a continuous effort to effect these relatively small changes in energy conservation in a variety of different energy systems across campus, and that these certainly add-up.

A similar example of a commonly implemented energy efficiency upgrade is the “variable frequency drive” (VFD). While this device may sound like it belongs in Star Trek, the way it works is, hopefully, not too far-fetched.

The need for VFD’s arose when engineers realized that they could save money on electricity for their cooling fans by not having the fan on full-blast when it was already pretty cold. While this may not strike many as the most genius epiphany in engineering, the VFD is actually extremely useful, as it is designed to monitor the environment and continuously adjust a fan’s power in order to maintain a specific temperature. This conveniently eliminates the consumption of electricity previously wasted on excessive cooling. Given the large magnitude of cooling needs in each and every building at the University, energy savings can really snowball with the increasing amount of VFD’s being installed around campus.

The great news is that the university has already implemented the VFD upgrade in around 80% of possible building space on campus! (http://www.greenreportcard.org/report–card-2011/schools/university–of–rochester/surveys/campus–survey#climate) Recently, a couple VFD upgrades were installed in Rush Rhees Library for which the University was awarded the separate sums of  $5,000  and $1,200 from NYSERDA, after applying for rebates in 2010 and 2011, respectively. Additionally, a defective fan drive in Bausch & Lomb Hall was recently replaced with a new VFD is going to bring an estimated annual electric savings of approximately $10,000! The change is expected to bring the University $5,000 through NYSERDA incentives.

With that said, don’t be under the impression that energy savings are exclusively gained either via large construction projects or via smaller device replacement projects, because the University’s energy projects include everything in between. One such example is the renovation of an existing building to house a Data Center. While the renovation included upgrades to the usual suspects—high efficiency fans along with high performance lighting and occupancy controls—a device called a “water-side economizer” was also installed, to make use of regular outdoor air to cool water in air handling systems, among other measures. This project was recognized by NYSERDA in 2011 in conjunction with another energy project at Monroe Community College, with both receiving a combined $300,000 in NYSERDA incentives and together they are expected to reduce energy costs by a combined $167,000 annually.

To put this into context, the combined energy savings generated, about 945,000 kilowatt hours, is equivalent to the amount of electricity consumed by 137 single-family homes annually.  In addition to the rebate, the University was honored to be the 50th recipient of the NYSERDA High Performance Building Plaque, which is presented to organizations responsible for newly constructed or renovated buildings which perform at least 30 percent above the New York State Energy Conservation Construction Code. The University made it in easy, scoring 42% over. According to David E. Lewis, Vice Provost and Chief Information Officer at University, “The NYSERDA incentives made it possible to build a sustainable, energy-efficient Data Center that supports the diverse and evolving needs of a world-class research university and a premier regional healthcare system.” 

Speaking of world-class research, the recent renovation of a chemistry lab in Hutchison Hall reveals how reducing energy consumption is not solely limited to the stereotypical upgrades for lights, fans, or electronic hardware that we usually have in mind.

As it turns out, chemistry labs are home to a lot of substances that you would prefer not to inhale. In order to shield students from having their lab experiments turn detrimental to their health (or their olfactory dispositions), there are a number of “fume hoods” available, which have ducts leading out to a common exhaust. However, with the recent expansion of lab curriculum, there weren’t enough hoods to go around as necessary. Normally, it would not be too difficult to simply purchase more hoods with ducts. The only problem was that in this case, the building did not physically have the exhaust capacity to add any more traditional fume hoods.

A new solution was in the calling, and it emerged in the complex form of new “ductless fume hoods”, which were connected to a monitoring system that regulated filter efficiency as well as chemical spills outside of the hood. The filter banks used in this “smart” technology were actually developed out of the space shuttle program, and are capable of filtering 98% or more of the chemicals commonly used in 99.9% of laboratories. While knowing the exact percentages of air contamination this time, as opposed to exact percentages of energy conservation codes, may not strike many as a breath of fresh air, this may help put it all into context: If the hoods are good enough for astronauts, we should hope that they are good enough for current undergrads!

What makes this technology particularly “green” is that the smart new ductless fume hoods do not need to make-up new air, as the traditional model required. While having access to plain old clean air may not strike us as something that would incur much savings of any sort, the new ductless fume hoods do not require energy expenditure on maintaining any separate air temperature, neither for the heating nor the cooling seasons. Amazingly, it is because of this that each individual ductless fume hood is projected to save the University close to $14,000 in energy a year. This implementation won the University a $36,000 grant from NYSERDA. (http://www.rdmag.com/Lab-Design-News/Featured-Articles/2012/04/Design-A-New-Kind-Of-Teaching-Lab-Chemistry-For-The-21st-Century/)

As far as important acronyms in energy efficiency go, “NYSERDA” is not the lone wolf. Another important tool in measuring energy efficiency is the LEED certification. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification provides verification that a building, home or community was designed and built using strategies aimed at achieving high performance in key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality. In short, it is a comprehensive method of evaluating how outstanding new construction is for both the environment and ourselves.

The good news is that the construction of O’BrienHall is targeted to meet LEED gold certification standards, which will be a first for the River Campus. That said, its next door neighbor halls Anderson and Wilder have their own claim to fame, having received Energy Star certification in 2011. The “three musketeers” of undergraduate housing dormitories have all, for one, improved energy performance, and have won, for all, a positive impact to our environment.

The University’s commitment to energy efficiency is sometimes easily observed, such as in the case of a building whose architecture is specially designed to preserve natural lighting, but may also sometimes be hidden away, perhaps as a smart cooling fan located at an obscure location (the whereabouts of which only electrical engineers know). In any case, University continues building buildings, and building energy savings, and it’s one of the reasons the University is “built” into the Princeton Review’s Guideto 322 GreenColleges.

For more Go Green articles, visit: http://www.rochester.edu/sustainability/gogreen/