RLF projects approved
Associated Project(s):
There were nine projects approved by the Revolving Loan Fund selection committee, see attached image.
Attached Files:
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Projects Updates for place: Physical Plant Service Building
EGEN SWATeam Meeting (1.20.17)
Associated Project(s):The EGEN SWATeam held their first meeting for the Spring 2017 semester. Topics covered include:
- Review draft recommendations for 1) on-campus solar and 2) petascale offsets
- An update from Morgan Johnston on the Associate Director of Campus Sustainability position
- Updating iCAP portal project pages for EGEN objectives
- Clean Energy PPA
- Potential for future solar farm
- Asking for feedback from EGEN team members regarding recommendation proces
Attached Files:Final Report by Logan Ebling
Associated Project(s):Logan’s final paper. Pretty fun.
Highlights:
- “[Bicycle fleets] promotes positive social interactions.”
- “..I think most of these worries go away [about bike fleets]… one issue that I saw coming up almost every time a discussion …was money. While totally understandable, it is also frustrating that there is a lack of desire to spend even a low amount of money to purchase one bicycle for employee use.”
- “…If they [departments] truly don’t have the money to spend, then perhaps the University as a whole should be assigning a sustainability budget specifically to each department that they can spend at their discretion in the name of sustainability.”
- “Bicycling on campus is the fastest mode of transportation; however, that would not be the case if the bikes are not located conveniently right outside your door or at least at a building next door. For bike sharing dock-style to match the convenience of a dedicated bicycle at the department’s building, the docks would have to be ubiquitous across campus, quite literally outside every building. Financially and logistically, I don’t think that is possible. To me, departmental bicycle fleets would be entirely more convenient for staff needing to get around campus quickly and efficiently.”
And, lastly, “In my opinion, the benefits are so numerous [for bike fleets] that the University should be aggressively funding and initiating bicycle fleets on campus.”
~per Lily Wilcock
Attached Files:EGEN SWATeam Meeting (12.2.16)
Associated Project(s):The EGEN SWATeam held their final meeting for the Fall 2016 semester. Topics covered include:
- Guest presentation by Niharika Kishore regarding rooftop solar on campus
- Potential recommendations to Working Group
- Potential solar: greenspace vs. rooftop vs. parking lot cover
Attached Files:Update as of 11/16/16
Associated Project(s):The past couple weeks have been productive and busy. Follow up emails were sent to those people who filled out our enrollment form but did not reply back after the initial email and already some good responses have come of that. A couple people said they misunderstood and didn't realize that their department would have to purchase the bicycles so they said they weren't interested. A couple said they received the info and were talking to the appropriate people within their departments. A couple others had meetings setup with myself due to the follow up emails.
This week I met with Illini Emergency Medical Services who have a bicycle fleet that they use during University events to ensure rapid medical response times. We discussed what was going well for them and what could be improved. They said they would like more publicity so I said that they should absolutely try and get the word out more about their efforts.
This week I also met with the Student Planning Organization, the RSO that manages Urban Planning department bicycle fleet. They have 3 bikes that I got to see. We discussed the potential of encouraging more faculty and visiting people's use of the bikes as well as branding for their bikes in an attempt to differentiate them from private bikes.
I have also been working on an infographic on "Why Bikes" that details the benefits of cycling on campus. I am hoping this can be passed around with other bicycle fleet documentation we send out. There are a couple drafts still and they are attached to this update as a private file.
EGEN SWATeam Meeting (11.9.16)
Associated Project(s):The EGEN SWATeam held their fourth meeting for the Fall 2016 semester. Topics covered include:
- Guest presentation by Yu-Feng Forrest Lin to discuss his work on investigating campus geothermal properties
- View draft recommendation for Petascale offsets
- Review draft recommendation for on-campus solar
Attached Files:Analysis of Existing Bicycle Fleet Survey Responses
Associated Project(s):After receiving responses from four different active bicycle fleets on campus after about 3 weeks of having our survey active, we wrote up an analysis of the responses. This analysis is attached to this post as a .pdf file.
This past week we continued reaching out to people that we have either met in person about potentially starting bicycle fleets on campus. Doug Wolters, Director of Operations for ACES, was able to reach out to the business managers of ACES to share information that we sent him. I also sent emails to a couple people that took our survey requesting a short meeting so we can further discuss their program's success as well as any ways we can improve their bicycle fleets.
Attached Files:Update on Bicycle Fleet Progress from August to October 2016
Associated Project(s):Here is an update of what Lily Wilcock and myself (Logan Ebeling) have accomplished concerning departmental bicycle fleets on campus from late August to late October.
We began with a goal of assessing the health and status of current departmental bicycle fleets on campus. Offhand, Lily knew of the following programs:
- Kinesiology department
- Living Learning Community in LAR
- Urban Planning department
- Building Operations and Maintenance
- Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning
In an attempt to reach out to those programs and other ones that we potentially did not know about, we developed a survey for people involved with those programs to take. A link to that survey was sent out in an E-Week advertisement on October 2nd. A screenshot of that blurb in the E-Week is attached to this post. We are still waiting on responses from that survey (so far we have about 3 responses).
Another goal was to advertise to departments that starting a bicycle fleet was even a possibility. Anecdotally, it seems that many people are unaware that the University is encouraging bicycle use for employees. To address this, we developed a short enrollment form that people could fill out if they wanted more information on starting a departmental bicycle fleet. A link to this enrollment form was also sent out in the October 2nd E-Week advertisement. We had around 10 replies to this enrollment form and sent out an email to the respondents with more information and an offer to meet and discuss possibilities for a bicycle fleet for their department.
One goal of mine was to develop two checklists to have available to people to aid in sending out information to people. These two checklists are completed and we have been sending them out to people where appropriate. The two checklists are attached to this post and they are:
- A checklist for maintaining existing bicycle fleets
- A checklist for starting a bicycle fleet
These checklists drew heavily off of information in the Departmental Bike Sharing Manual from 2014 (attached to this project's main page).
EGEN SWATeam Meeting notes (10.12.16)
Associated Project(s):The EGEN SWATeam held their third meeting for the Fall 2016 semester. Topics covered include:
- Development of formal SWATeam recommendatino to the working group regarding offsets for Petascale
- RECs - does this get us to our goal?
- Potential recommendations for rooftop solar
Attached Files:Weekly Update
Associated Project(s):All, this past week we had 107 visitors. We grossed $1,185.60. We sold 11 memberships; 1 bike for $120; 1 build-a-bike for $75.
This past week I also reinstated the First Visit Free policy that The Bike Project had kindly let me suspend for the new school year rush. Traffic to CBC has slowed enough that I can accommodate small and easy repairs. I don’t have numbers on that but it was only a few people that had minor enough problems to warrant a free visit; most who think they have a small repair in truth have many, many small repairs equaling large amounts of time/resources and we have them become members.
On Monday of last week our cargo bike Bluebird was loaned to the Psychology Department for a day. Lily delivered and retrieved it from them and I believe it was a successful endeavor.
This coming week will be a short one. I will be out of town Thursday and Friday. During this abbreviated week I plan to work on storage ideas for the surplus of wheels we have in the shop, strip the half a dozen or so bikes that are taking up dead space, as well as the standard operations of building bikes and managing new-parts inventory.Jake Benjamin
Campus Bike Center Managere-Week survey message
Associated Project(s):Facilities and Services is collecting information on departmental bicycle fleets as part of the Campus Bicycle Plan. If you are interested in options for how to better sustain, grow or optimize your existing fleet, fill out the important survey by Oct. 14. Those interested in receiving information on starting a departmental bike fleet can fill out the form: http://go.fs.illinois.edu/bikefleet.
Logan Ebeling . Facilities and Services
Article about Billion Dollar Green Challenge
Associated Project(s):The Chicago Tribune included a mention of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as one of two schools in Illinois that have joined the Billion Dollar Green Challenge. http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/naperville-sun/ct-nvs-north-centra...
Student solar efforts renewing for fall 2016
Associated Project(s):Niharika Kishore, masters in Urban Planning (MUP) student, and Corey Weil, sophomore in Electrical and Computer Engineering, are working with Morgan Johnston on the iSEE objective for on-campus solar. Niharika will continue her efforts for promoting rooftop solar to meet the iCAP objective for 12,500 MWh/year of on-campus solar energy generation as part of a MUP capstone project this year. Corey will volunteer in various efforts to support the development of solar solutions for campus, from the Net Zero Energy ECE efforts to advocating for solar energy funding.
Possibility for rooftop solar on Mechanical Engineering Building
Associated Project(s):After the August 5th presentation by Niharika Kishore to College of Engineering facilities contact Greg Larson, Greg spoke with Mechanical Engineering facilities contact Damon McFall about roofotp solar for the Mechanical Engineering Building (MEB). Morgan Johnston explained that MEB had been left off the list Niharika worked on because of the upcoming Capital Programs project in that facility. Greg indicated that they are interested in pursuing rooftop solar for MEB. Potentially the design could be included in the Capital Project design effort, and the installation would need to be funded separately. This roof could hold approximately 130 kW array.
New Effort Towards Promoting Departmental Bicycle Fleets
Associated Project(s):August, 2016, a new initiative towards promoting departments to start their own bicycle fleets began. Lily Wilcock, Active Transportation Coordinator, took on myself (Logan Ebeling), a student intern to help with this project. I am participating in the project as part of ENVS 491, a class required for my Sustainability Minor.
This project is an evolution from the Departmental Bike Sharing project (see Associated Projects) and is using materials from that project and is drawing off its success.
We met August 24th at the Campus Bike Center to discuss goals for this semester. We settled on two broad goals: First, assessing the health, challenges, and success of already existing departmental bicycle fleets and second, promoting the formation of new bicycle fleets on campus.
Niharika Kishore sending email to potential facilities
Associated Project(s):Niharika Kishore will send an email to potential facilities for adding rooftop solar, in support of the 2015 iCAP objective. The draft email is attached and the list of potential facilities is as follows:
Building Estimated Yearly Output (kWh/yr) Physical Plant Services Building 791,522 Activities and Recreation Center 725,562 Law Building 395,761 Ikenberry Dining Hall 382,569 Abbott Power Plant 263,841 Digital Computer Library 263,841 Plant Sciences Laboratory 164,900 Timothy J. Nugent Hall 164,900 Institute of Genomic Biology 158,304 Richard T. Ubben Basketball Complex 151,708 Oak Street Library 151,708 Bousfield Hall 145,112 Garage and Carpool 125,324 Attached Files:FY17 Committee formed and meeting being scheduled
Associated Project(s):This information was sent to the FY17 RLF Selection Committee:
Thank you for continuing to serve on the Revolving Loan Fund (RLF) Selection Committee. The primary function of the committee is the selection of RLF proposed projects. At the selection meeting, you will be considering approximately $2M in energy conservation projects that are expected to have a relatively short payback period. The utility savings (cost avoidance) from these projects is then repaid to the RLF allowing additional conservation projects to be funded at a later date. For more detailed program information, please see the attached Agreement/Process document and visit the RLF website.
An email with proposed project specifics and a scoring template will be sent prior to the meeting. Currently, the Utilities & Energy Services staff are reviewing the proposals and assembling the handout and presentation. We would like to target a day when the committee is available to present the proposed projects, score, and finalize selections. Your charge will be to review the submissions utilizing the stated criteria in the attachment and make recommendations for loan funding.
I look forward to meeting with you and please let me know if you have any questions.
Thank you again,
Josh Whitson
Attached Files:Niharika Kishore is working on developing a rooftop solar RFP for design
Associated Project(s):Today, Morgan Johnston met with Niharika Kishore to discuss the rooftop solar iCAP objective. Niharika is going to review the work already done, in the iSEE solar box folder, and draft a proposal for getting the engineering design work done for a set of building. She will be working towards meeting the FY20 on campus generation goal of 12,500 MWh/year, and possibly additional installations for FY25.
Art and Design Building solar design
Associated Project(s):A group of seniors completed the attached report for the Art and Design Building, for rooftop solar. They recommended a flexible solar material, with micro-inverters. The Art and Design department is interested in working with a student in the fall to seek funding for the rooftop solar from the Student Sustainability Committee.
Attached Files:Weekly Update
Associated Project(s):Hello all, This past week was good. We saw better weather and as a result a huge bump in attendance. The newly reorganized space has gotten lots of compliments. We'll see if it works in the long run. We sold 6 bikes for $740, 1 build-a-bike for $30, 5 memberships for $140, and grossed $1490.80. Lots of cool things going on. I took a bunch more bikes out of the warehouse, and am building them to sell/make space. I setup the wheel building class for May. Lily and I presented the cargo bike to FAA, and agreed to work on sustainable transportation solutions with them. I got a lot of work done on the annual reports in anticipation of the end of the fiscal year.
This week I will be making a short report of sustainable transportation options for FAA, cleaning up the shop, helping with the Bike Census, participating in Ride with the Chancellor, and continuing to work on the annual reports.
From the Campus Outpost,
James Roedl
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