Energy Exchange

Would Your Building Pass An Energy Efficiency Background Check?

By EDF Blogs / Published: August 3, 2011

By: Jian Huo, 2011 Climate Corps Public Sector Fellow in Mecklenburg County, NC; MEM candidate at the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University

This summer, my EDF partner, Adam Hart, and I are running energy efficiency “background checks” on buildings at Mecklenburg County Real Estate Services in North Carolina. Of the county’s 100 facilities, we identified 15 energy-intensive sites and arranged site tours of them for a closer look. In our energy assessments of the facilities, the red flags for energy waste were older machines with low energy efficiency, lighting, and HVAC systems.

Lighting – Metal Halides in Gyms and Pools

The county’s indoor gyms and pools are equipped with over 300 metal halides that are 400W and 1000W, which run more than 50 hours per week. Due to their long re-strike time, daylight sensors and occupancy sensors cannot be used to help save energy. However, switching to lower wattage LED lights can cut current energy use by 85% and allow for the installation of daylight sensors and occupancy sensors for further energy reduction. Changing lights in the high ceilings will

be a great challenge, especially in the pool areas. Although it seems time consuming and risky to change lighting above water, maintenance can put scissor lifts on the movable walkways to get to the metal halides and replace them.

HVAC – Heat Pumps Without Controls

HVAC is the most complicated and intimidating part of the whole building system to a Climate Corps Public Sector fellow with little background in engineering. Even after Adam and I did background checks on all the sites, we had no direct solution for upgrading those giant and inefficient machines. So Adam and I started to conduct interviews with HVAC experts and facility managers, acquiring valuable information along the way. With newfound information, we tackled the County and Courts Office Building, which has heat pumps that are not connected to the central control system, but instead controlled with individual thermostats. Because the heat pumps may not work stably under high temperatures, the air conditioning controls are never set back when the facility is vacant. Energy savings will be easily achieved if the heat pumps are looped into the control system, allowing for the set back of air conditioning and heating controls during unoccupied hours.

Overall, our recommended changes to lighting and HVAC systems at facilities in Mecklenburg County Real Estate Services have great potential to cut energy usage and reduce greenhouse gas pollution. By doing background research of the buildings’ systems, touring sites, and talking to the right people, Adam and I were able to tackle the red flags of energy waste at the county’s facilities. After the retrofits are made, all of their buildings will pass our “background check.” Would yours?

EDF Climate Corps Public Sector (CCPS) trains graduate students to identify energy efficiency savings in colleges, universities, local governments and houses of worship. The program focuses on partnerships with minority serving institutions and diverse communities. Apply as a CCPS fellow, read our blog posts and follow us on Twitter to get regular updates about this program.

Middletown Township: First In Energy Efficiency

By EDF Blogs / Published: August 1, 2011

By: Jim Hildenbrand, 2011 Climate Corps Public Sector Fellow at Middletown Township, New Jersey; MEM candidate at the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University

Although Middletown is one of New Jersey’s largest towns, its carbon footprint is small for its size. In 2010, Middletown attained Sustainable New Jersey Bronze status by committing to sustainable actions that involved tracking greenhouse gas emissions, mitigating solid waste through improved recycling, and educating the public on ways to reduce its environmental impact. The Township has received $700,000 in state and federal grants, conducted efficiency upgrades with at least 60% of costs covered, and a comprehensive energy assessment. In short, Middletown is committed to the environment.

However, with these environmental initiatives comes the challenge of tracking effort and making progress. For instance, one effort could be undone or made redundant by another. I dedicated the first half of my Climate Corps Public Sector fellowship to fully understand what had happened, what will happen, and what may happen.

Now in the second half of my fellowship, the pace has not slackened and I am evaluating a variety of opportunities for energy savings. About 20 of Middletown’s buildings consume 9,000 megawatt-hours per year. Each building is unique and no two buildings serve the same purpose. While this adds to the challenge, it has been a lot of fun. I explored a turn of the century schoolhouse that was retrofitted into a boxing ring. I also traversed the floors of the headmaster’s house of a former all-boys school that is now used as the seat for the historical society, a gymnasium, and a drug rehabilitation program.

My approaches to energy efficiency span the spectrum. One size does not fit all in the realm of energy savings. For one building, I examine the possibility of consolidating thermostat controls to prevent its six rooftop units from working against each other. In another, white roofing is the best option to help lessen the cooling load. Just as no two buildings are the same, no two approaches toward energy efficiency are either. This customized approach to reducing energy bills and greenhouse gas pollution will keep Middletown’s environmental impact to a minimum and inspire neighboring towns to do the same.

Top Down Energy Savings: 1 Fellow, 1 Housing Authority, And 400,000 New Yorkers

By EDF Blogs / Published: July 29, 2011

By: Harrison Thomas, 2011 Climate Corps Public Sector Fellow at the New York City Housing Authority, MEM candidate at the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University; MBA candidate at Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill

If you work with the Energy Department at the New York City Housing Authority, here is what you’ve got on your hands:

Hundreds of heating systems, all different
Thousands of buildings, all different
Hundreds of thousands of tenants, all different
Millions of energy consuming fixtures
Hundreds of millions of dollars in annual energy costs, and rising

In recent years, the housing authority has undertaken many initiatives to directly conserve energy in the 2,600 buildings that house 400,000 New Yorkers. These energy saving initiatives include investments in energy-efficient lighting, instant hot water heaters, refrigerators, and elevators. These capital investments have clear costs and provide clear benefits, but energy expenditures continue to climb by millions of dollars per year.

The authority has limited resources and relies on management systems to set priorities to serve tenants and conserve energy. Last week, I went on a field trip to see the capital investments and management systems first hand. The immense scale of investment needed to provide thermal comfort and hot water to tenants was immediately apparent. Each boiler room is incredibly large, complex, and requires full-time monitoring by technicians and supervisors. And the authority doesn’t have just a couple of boiler rooms to manage – it has hundreds that are all different. Read More »

Posted in EDF Climate Corps / Tagged New York City Housing Authority - 2011 | Comments are closed

Solar Farms And LED Snowflakes In July

By EDF Blogs / Published: July 28, 2011

By: Erin Evans, 2011 Climate Corps Public Sector Fellow at the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina; MPA candidate at Appalachian State University

It feels like only yesterday when my EDF partner, Daniel Brookshire, and I moved to Cherokee, North Carolina to start our work with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Time has flown by and the experience has been absolutely amazing. As we type up our final reports and begin to see the results of cost savings and energy savings for the Tribe, it is hard to believe we did so much in a short period of time.

Visiting a Solar Farm

Daniel and I visited an $8 million dollar solar farm owned by FLS Energy, a company out of Asheville, NC, that leases land from the Blue Ridge Paper Landfill in Haywood County for only $1 per year. FLS Energy signed a 25-year contract with Progress Energy to sell back the solar energy generated by its farm. A tour of the solar farm, as well as a meeting in the FLS office led to further discussions on how the Tribe can use this renewable energy on its reservation. Photovoltaic arrays on tribal buildings and solar thermal power can help the tribe reach its goal of becoming more sustainable and energy efficient.

Snowflakes in July

A favorite project of ours started one hot July day inside an unair-conditioned warehouse, where Daniel and I counted all of the tiny bulbs inside the snowflake decorations that hang from light poles in the winter. Each of the 79 large snowflakes contains 90 little glass bulbs. In addition to saving energy, stepping on and shattering several of the fragile 7W bulbs gave more reason to switch to 1W durable plastic LED bulbs, each of which lasts 60,000 hours. Soon these snowflakes will glow even brighter with LED illumination. The best present is the energy reduction of over 60,000W and energy cost savings of $6,000. Happy holidays in Cherokee.

Posted in EDF Climate Corps / Tagged Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians - 2011 | Comments are closed

Catalyzing Change: Sustainability In A Southern Town

By EDF Blogs / Published: July 22, 2011

By: Kealy Devoy, 2011 Climate Corps Public Sector Fellow at the Town of Cary, NC; MEM candidate at the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University

This summer, I am working with the Town of Cary in North Carolina to identify energy efficiency improvements throughout its organization. My focus is on two projects: fire and emergency services sustainability, and energy planning. Cary’s commitment to saving energy deserves applause.

My goal is to see tangible energy efficiency improvements. Some of these changes are easily measurable: energy use reductions, dollars saved, and greenhouse gas emissions avoided. Others will be tougher to track, such as determining the number of Cary employees who are aware of sustainability initiatives.

Catalyzing change takes time, certainly more than 10 short weeks. However despite this limited time period that I have, there are many strategies that can be used to point organizations in the right direction. During the Climate Corps Public Sector training, Paula Thomas, the Sustainability Director for the City of Raleigh, gave the fellows a list of ways to become agents of change in the municipalities, churches, and universities that we are working with. Her seven core steps to catalyzing change are:

Make it official.
Identify the changers.
Change is not binary.
Operate in parallel.
The Rule of 7.
Market internally and externally.
Celebrate successes. Read More »

Posted in EDF Climate Corps / Comments are closed

Get Your Green On!

By EDF Blogs / Published: July 20, 2011

By: Jen Weiss, 2011 Climate Corps Public Sector Fellow at Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina; MEM candidate at the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University

Timing, they say, is everything. And timing combined with knowledgeable and motivated people who want to make a difference? That, my friends, is just plain ole’ lucky.

My EDF partner Eliza and I have been working at Shaw University, and so far we have found some terrific no-cost and low-cost projects with great payback periods and measurable energy savings. We are beginning to feel that our recommendations are ready to be wrapped up in a pretty green bow. But, wait … what is this that we have just stumbled across?

An Unexpected and Untapped Treasure

Thanks to a change in office space midway through our fellowship, we had a chance encounter with two of the most determined women we have ever met. Please let me introduce you to Ms. Agnes Baxter and Ms. Juanda Holley, the energetic forces behind Shaw University’s newly formed Green Team. Stand back staff and students of Shaw University, you are about to be hit by another tornado – A bright GREEN tornado!

It all started innocently enough – a casual chat with an office mate about what we were working on at Shaw. Our discussion about upgrading lights and setting thermostats at reasonable settings turned into a heated brainstorming session about recycling, environmental education, solar, biodiesel, and most importantly – behavioral change at Shaw University. It appears that we were not the first to think of energy efficiency solutions at Shaw. And we most definitely will not be the last. Read More »

Posted in EDF Climate Corps / Tagged Shaw University - 2011 | Comments are closed