Status: In Progress
• Several initiatives underway focusing on student engagement — including Illini Lights Out and Eco-Olympics.
• Initiatives are continuing for staff and faculty engagement — Certified Green Office Program, Energy Conservation Incentive Program (ECIP).
• Forming a plan to work toward a Green Labs program that would focus on reducing energy consumption in labs (e.g. fume hoods, refrigeration).
On October 28, 2016, Chad Kupferschmid provided Morgan Johnston and Sarthak Prasad with the campus map with all the street and parking lights owned by the campus or the city of Urbana or Champaign. The main purpose of this map was to help with determining the boundary of the campus so that they could recommend which street lights should be preferred for the immediate projects.
Topics of discussion for the Water and Stormwater Team meeting included recommendations studies, the function, and role of the iCAP working group, expectations for the SWATeam, metering at BIF, and the use of greywater in the Design center (a new building on campus).
All, last week was a good one and ended on a high note—Friday was beginning-of-the-semester level busy. We had 95 visitors. Our gross sales were $1,268.60; we sold 10 memberships for $300, one bike for $150, and one build-a-bike for $140.
The major goings-on last week was the bike census on Wednesday. It went well! We collected a lot of useful and important data. I was interviewed about the event by the Daily Illini. Lily did a tremendous job organizing and executing the event. The service manager at Champaign Cycle stopped by and introduced himself; it’s always nice to have a face-to-face with other bike shops in town.
This week I will be prepping bikes and pulling the good ones at the warehouse, scrapping the pile of junker bikes that Neutral kindly donated, building more for-sale bikes as well as some new storage shelves for the shop.
In Spring 2016, a recommendation was submitted to allow longer-term contracts for the purchase of renewable power. The institute for Sustainability, Energy, and the Environment (iSEE) is currently reviewing this request with campus legal counsel and Purchasing departments to determine feasible options and potential next steps.
A contract is in place to perform a heat recovery chiller (HRC) study to identify potential location(s) for HRCs on campus, and to assess opportunities for one system to serve multiple buildings. Preliminary review and assessment is expected to begin October 2016.
Construction is underway in Fall 2016 to install a 200 kW biomass boiler at the Energy Farm. This system will initially satisfy all heating needs for the greenhouse onsite, and will replace the current propane heating system. In the future, more buildings may be added to the boiler system.
Beginning Fall 2016, a team at the Illinois State Geological Survey (ISGS, a division of the prairie Research Institute) led by Illinois Professor Yu-Feng Forrest Lin is conducting a series of detailed observations of the geothermal profile on campus - including high-resolution temperature profiling and thermal analysis. The team will drill to 330 ft and install a geothermal loop and fiberoptic cables. Results will help determine the feasibility of implementing geothermal systems on campus by identifying costs and possible challenges.
Professor Lin has coordinated with faculty from the University of Wisconsin to incorporate lessons learned from their implementation of a geothermal exchange system at the nearby EPIC health care systems campus in Verona, WI.
Professor Lin's team began drilling on 9/19/16. Daily drilling progress is logged and can be found by clicking this link.
SWATeam Memebers Chibuihe Asonye, Brent Lewis, and Joseph Edwards represented the team at the Campus Sustainability Celebration at Alice Campbell Alumni Center. During the celebration team members talked to campus community members about their work on the team and the progress on the ICAP goals.
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:
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:
These checklists drew heavily off of information in the Departmental Bike Sharing Manual from 2014 (attached to this project's main page).
Students at Allen Hall volunteered to help with maintenance of the Red Oak Rain Garden. They offered to take pictures of the existing garden, to document its current condition.
The 2016 ECIP award winners were announced last Wednesday, and they will be given plaques at the annual Campus Sustainability Celebration this week, 10/16 from 4-6 at the Alice Campbell Alumni Center. Here is the letter.
Congratulations!
We would like to recognize your unit as a 2016 Energy Conservation Incentive Program (ECIP) award winner during the Campus Sustainability Celebration on Wednesday, October 26 from 4-6 p.m. at the Alice Campbell Alumni Center. For planning purposes, please let us know who will be accepting the award(s) on behalf of your unit by Friday, October 21.
Sustainability initiatives are at the core of Illinois’ commitment to its land-grant university mission. The Climate Leadership Commitment pledges the Urbana campus to be carbon neutral by 2050, which requires all students, staff, and employees working together to implement a dynamic, multi-disciplinary approach to campus sustainability.
The ECIP awards began in 2013 as a way to recognize outstanding individual and team efforts that move us closer to reaching our Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) goals. The ECIP honors occupants of campus buildings that have reduced energy at the greatest level from one year to the next. This year more than $177,000 for improvement projects in winning facilities will be provided through the program.
Everyone researching, learning, and working in these nine buildings is an ECIP winner, and we encourage as many participants to join the celebration as possible. Hosted by Facilities & Services and the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment, the Campus Sustainability Celebration will cover the iCAP objectives, celebrate the diverse sustainability community, and recognize 2016 winners.
We look forward to you and your employees joining us to celebrate the ECIP winners and their contributions toward campus energy conservation.
|
2016 ECIP WINNERS |
||
|
Occupant Action Category |
% Improvement |
Incentive Award |
|
1. Atmospheric Sciences Building |
7.5% |
$50,324 |
|
2. Krannert Center for the Performing Arts |
4.8% |
$34,111 |
|
3. Institute of Government & Public Affairs Building |
4.4% |
$15,083 |
|
4. 1207 West Oregon Street (tie) |
2.9% |
$10,048 |
|
4. Temple Hoyne Buell Hall (tie) |
2.4% |
$11,486 |
|
Energy Advancement Category |
% Improvement |
Incentive Award |
|
1. Davenport Hall |
25.8% |
$26,335 |
|
2. Ceramics Kiln House |
21.2% |
$10,000 |
|
3. Transportation Building |
14.0% |
$10,000 |
|
4. Rehabilitation Education Center |
9.6% |
$10,000 |
Helen J. Coleman, LEED AP
Interim Executive Director
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Facilities & Services
1501 South Oak St.
Champaign, IL 61820
Phone: (217) 265-8477
E-mail: hjcolema@illinois.edu
At the ECBS SWATeam meeting Doctor Yun Yi joined the team as a new Faculty Member. Dr. Yi shared with the team his campus level building performance research on energy usage modeling in Pennsylvania. It was decided that the buildings for an informal study at UIUC, based on Dr Yi’s model, will be the same eight buildings as for “Illini Lights Out” project. “Illini Lights Out” project was approved by SSC for $1000 of funding. Campus Sustainability Celebration will occur on October 26, where ECBS SWATeam's poster will be presented.
Community member, Karen Folk, inquired about the potential to establish the Red Oak Rain Garden as an official volunteer location for the Master Naturalists and Master Gardeners to help maintain. Eliana Brown, currently a Water Resources Outreach Specialist, asked Superintendent of Grounds, Ryan Welch. Ryan indicated that he would be willing to approve the volunteer program, and the first step is to define a Memo of Understanding (MOU) describing the volunteer work to be done. He said, "I am agreeable to this, as long as the work is done strictly by volunteers and there is a MOU for the maintenance responsibilities between F&S and the Master Gardeners."
The University purchased 25 3-loop, 35 4-loop, and 70 5-loop rail-mounted bicycle racks from RJ Thomas Manufacturing Co. Inc. These bike racks were recieved in October 2016
The 2015 iCAP, chapter 3, objective 2 is "Expand on-campus solar energy production. By FY20, produce at least 12,500 MWh/year, and by FY25 at least 25,000 MWh/year, from solar installations on campus property."
The 2015 iCAP also described the following potential strategies for achieving this objective:
The campus has a 33 kW photovoltaic array on the roof of the Business Instructional Facility (with an annual production of 44 MWh/yr) and a 14.7 kW ground-mounted array at the Building Research Lab (20 MWh/yr). During FY15, we began installation of a 300 kW array on the roof of the new Electrical and Computer Engineering Building (402 MWh/yr), and the 5.87 MW Solar Farm on the south campus (7,860 MWh/yr). There is also a solar thermal array on the roof of the Activities and Recreation Center. There are many other buildings, parcels of land, and parking lots that are well positioned to host sizeable photovoltaic and/or solar thermal arrays. Although each array in itself would make a small contribution to campus energy generation, taken together the contribution could be significant.
The solar consultation group is identifying the best places to install the next round of photovoltaic projects, and planning to move forward on several projects simultaneously. Solar thermal may make sense in some situations, as well. Student design teams could be organized through classes and volunteer groups to assist with the planning and prioritizing of on-campus solar installations.
The best time to plan for the installation of photovoltaics on a building is during the design phase. The campus could implement standards requiring that all new construction and additions include solar photovoltaics on the roof. In some cases it may also be effective to install photovoltaics on the exterior walls of the buildings."
Meeting Minutes 10-21-16
Attendees:
Josh Feldman
Claire Dondival
Topics:
Claire emailed Lance Schideman, professor who works for Illinois Sustainable Tech Center. He hasn’t gotten back to her yet, but Claire will try to see if he can possibly come to one of our future meetings.
Next Meeting:
11/4/16, Friday at 1pm in the iSEE conference room
Meeting focused on the function of the SWATeam and resources available for the team to utilize. The team reviewed recommendation studies submitted by the Water team in the past.
Topics of Discussion included poster for Campus Sustainability Celebration, Feasibility Studies submitted in the late Spring of 2016, and the Goals of SWATeams.
