Initiative brightens buildings and curbs energy usage
By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor 217-244-1072; slforres@illinois.edu
“Who turned on all the lights?” Bruce Barnham, interim head and a professor of natural resources and environmental sciences, said jokingly about recent lighting improvements at Turner Hall.
Turner Hall is one of four buildings where lighting was upgraded as part of the Lighting Retrofit Project, an ongoing initiative that is expected to curb energy usage while brightening up the lighting and whittling down the backlog of deferred maintenance projects in buildings around campus.
Crews from Facilities and Services Division are replacing fluorescent lamps and ballasts in about 80,000 light fixtures in 44 buildings across campus. T12 fluorescent lamps and magnetic ballasts are being replaced with high-performance T8 lamps and electronic ballasts, which generate the same amount of light but are 40 percent more energy efficient, do not flicker or hum and provide more natural color rendition.
“Other benefits of the T8 lamps are that they reduce the presence of potentially hazardous materials” such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and mercury that may be in the old lamps and ballasts, said Eva Sweeney, F&S engineering specialist. “They also reduce the amount of electromagnetic noise generated by the old ballasts,” which interfered with research in some units.
Overhead lighting consumes as much as 40-50 percent of a building’s electricity. “The chancellor’s Strategic Plan includes an aggressive energy reduction goal, and lighting will be an important step toward meeting it,” Sweeney said.
Since July, Turner Hall, the Psychology Building, the English Building and the National Soybean Research Center have been retrofitted with new lighting and work is in progress at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.
“I think a number of the ballasts weren’t working efficiently, so perhaps only two-thirds of the fixtures were fully functioning. (The retrofits) really brightened up the building considerably,” Barnham said. “It’s nice to see the university investing in some of these projects that need done. We’ve had a lot of these things that were installed when the buildings were built and have never been updated or modernized, and it’s good that we’re getting some progress made on these fronts. The biggest way that we’re going to save energy is to go through the buildings that we have and figure out how we can make them better.”
The total project budget is $2.8 million, and a $1.2 million grant from the nonprofit agency the Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation is funding work on about 30 of the 44 buildings on the target list of the largest energy users on campus.
Administration may obtain another $1.6 million, possibly from the Academic Facilities Maintenance Fund Assessment fee paid by students, to retrofit 10 other buildings on the list, including Davenport Hall, Freer Hall and Bevier Hall. The proposed work would include replacing some deteriorating fixtures and installing occupancy sensors in addition to replacing T-12 lamps and ballasts with energy-efficient T-8s. Projected annual energy savings for the 10 buildings would be about $260,000, based upon 12 hours’ usage daily, according to Doris Reeser, capital maintenance planning coordinator in F&S.
When completed in May 2009, the Lighting Retrofit Project is expected to save the campus more than $1 million annually in energy costs.
“The absolute most-efficient light is one that is switched off,” Sweeney said. “We can all have a huge impact on energy use by remembering to turn lights off when we leave, even if it is just over lunch or while at a meeting, but especially at the end of the day.”
F&S also is moving ahead with retro commissioning projects that will help buildings operate more efficiently by restoring building systems to optimal operating conditions with a focus on energy conservation, emission reduction, lower utility costs and comfort satisfaction. The projects include upgrades and renovations to heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems as well as other building systems.
During the past year, the retro commissioning team has completed upgrades in the ACES Library, Newmark Civil Engineering Building, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, the National Soybean Research Center and Turner Hall, with estimated savings to the university of more than $875,000 annually.
F&S plans to spend about two-thirds of its funding for deferred maintenance projects on energy conservation projects, including classroom renovations and heating, ventilation and air conditioning system replacements. F&S continues to investigate ways to reduce campus energy consumption and the carbon footprint, including the adoption of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards on large building projects, a wind turbine project and an awareness campaign.
Earlier this year, Chancellor Richard Herman established goals of reducing the energy consumption of existing buildings by 10 percent over the next three years and rolling back usage to 1990 standards within five years. In February, Herman pledged that the campus would achieve climate neutrality by joining more than 4,000 institutions in signing the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment. Additionally, Herman and Provost Linda Katehi approved the Energy Policy for the Urbana Campus in mid-2007, which aims to aggressively reduce energy consumption and costs, diminish greenhouse gas emissions and shift energy generation to renewable resources.
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