Projects to reduce deferred maintenance and energy consumption begin soon

Many of you may already have read or heard about the University addressing the need for a new steam plant. As part of the new steam plant endeavor the University is also addressing the need for reducing deferred maintenance and energy consumption across many of the academic and academic support buildings. These projects will begin very soon and once completed will have a tremendous impact on energy consumption and our impact on the environment all while adding new life to many of the buildings. To give some scale to this, the environmental reduction impact from the lighting retrofits alone is the equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from 913 passenger vehicles driven for one year, the CO2 emission reductions from 460 homes of energy use for one year or 23.3 railcars worth of coal burned, and the carbon reductions sequestered by 5,023 acres of US forests in one year (https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator, n.d.).

The projects range from simplistic light fixture upgrades converting to LED to complete mechanical system replacements. There are 155 projects across 48 buildings. Some of the 155 projects will be broken into bite size pieces in order to minimize the disruption to daily activities. Some of the projects inevitably will disrupt building occupants with well-orchestrated strategies to mitigate unneeded stresses to any one department.

There has been a substantial amount of design and planning activity that has already occurred and much more to come as the projects get closer to their start. Some preliminary activities have already occurred in some out of sight locations. Others will become more visible starting the week of 12/17/2018 with the starting of lighting upgrades in Education and Ryan Hall. Activities in the buildings will increase in intensity as the weeks, months, and year progresses. It is anticipated that activities will occur over the next 2 years and some fine tuning to continue on past that as we all begin to adapt to the equipment that is efficiently providing heating, cooling and light to our work environment, all while increasing effectiveness.

With everyone’s cooperation and patience our work will pay off at the end. Our campus will be more efficient and our mechanical systems that serve our spaces will have increased reliability. Our buildings will also have additional controls that will make them smarter which will enhance the occupant experience.

— Michael Nord, Manager of Sustainability and Energy, Facilities Management