Below is an email exchange between Tyler Swanson and Karl Helmink:

Hello Karl,

My name is Tyler Swanson, and I am the clerk for the Energy iCAP Team. I am reaching out to you today to hear your thoughts on a couple of ideas myself and the energy team chairs have had for improving energy efficiency on campus.

First, would it be feasible to recommend a facilities standard that requires any new buildings to be either net-zero or to have the capacity to generate clean energy on sight, such as solar or geothermal? This was thought of as a way to reduce the energy impact of developing new buildings across campus.

Second, would it be feasible to recommend a facilities standard that sets a higher energy standard for new buildings and renovations on campus? I saw that CEJA requires the state of Illinois to create a new stretch code by the end of 2023, and I wondered if there have been any conversations about this at F&S.

Thank you for your time!

Sincerely,

Tyler Swanson

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Tyler,

My comments would be that both of these topics have been discussed in the past.

1. The codes set the standard for energy consumption and I think that we still have a campus standard that asks for us to be x% above the code.   It is more cost effective to have a solar farm than to put panels on each new building.  My best thought / suggestion would be to spend say $20 million a year on fixing old buildings (deferred maintenance)  and installing new modern systems and retire say 1960-1980 energy intensive mechanical systems. The net zero buildings are very expensive.  So  in my opinion a better way to spend the money would be to upgrade/ renovate existing structure rather than building new buildings which add to the campus square footage.  Net zero buildings are very expensive and potentially take money away from energy saving deferred maintenance projects like ESCOs.

1. You guys should probably understand the history on this item.  Tom can probably help with that.  Staying with professional codes/standards such as ASHRAE is probably the most viable option at this point. It might be worthwhile inviting Tom to a meeting to discuss the latest on the codes.  There is some history on this subject.

Thanks,

karl