iCAP Resilience Team Meeting 10-20-23
The iCAP Resilience Team met on October 20th to discuss charge letter priorities and current recommendations. Meeting minutes are attached.
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The iCAP Resilience Team met on October 20th to discuss charge letter priorities and current recommendations. Meeting minutes are attached.
The Land & Water iCAP team met on Teams from 1-2 PM on Friday, November 3rd. The team discussed permeable pavers at State Farm Center, the meadow at Orchard Downs, cover crops on the South Farm, and the iCAP 2025 rewrite of the Land & Water chapter. Meeting minutes are attached.
Hi Pete,
Please see attached for the draft we discussed today.
Thank you,
Daphne
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Hi Daphne,
Can you give me an update on this YMCA MOU?
Thanks,
Morgan
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Hi Pete,
Throwing this question up to you 😊 Have you had a chance to send the MOU over to Ehab?
Thank you,
Daphne
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I meet with Ehab this afternoon and can discuss with him at that time. However, are you working on an MOU with Housing as well? I’d rather give him both at the same time if possible.
Thank you,
Pete
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Hi Pete,
Yes, I have a working draft of the Housing MOU, too. I’ve attached it here for review.
Thank you,
Daphne
Dear Team,
Kindly verify the attached document from Ryan to ensure it meets the requirements for a bid posting. We've initiated an inquiry about a potential sole source option, and we're awaiting a response.
Regarding the meeting scheduled to discuss CO and AZ designs for the rebid, it remains on track. We will also plan another meeting for next week.
Your cooperation is greatly appreciated.
Best regards,
Basia
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Please see latest proposed layout for 100kw system for discussion.
Best,
Tim
We will be setting up a few meetings starting after Labor Day to meet our upcoming deadlines, with our final report due by November 15. Please review the attached Word file and supplemental attachments ahead of the meetings. Please feel free to post comments/thoughts to our Teams site.
Thanks
Jeremy
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Good morning, everyone,
I have put the files Jeremy sent on Aug 18th into teams. They are under “files” in the “General” channel. You probably saw the invitation to meet virtually on Sept 20th. Hard to get a busy group together. This is a long time from now and we were hoping to meet sooner. Since we can’t meet sooner, we ask that you review these new documents in the next couple weeks. Add comments to the documents, track changes, or put comments in the file called “COMMENTS Aug-Sept.” We need to spend more time working on this outside of the meetings.
We will use our Sept 20th meeting to make some semi-final decisions on the recommendations from the committee to leadership. October can be used to fine tune.
I will send reminders up until Sept 20th to makes sure no one forgets to dig into these. Please don’t wait until the final day. Your comments could help others produce ideas/additional thoughts. Also, please check back on those documents to see what others are saying as well.
Here is a screenshot of the highlighted documents I’m referencing. If you look at some of the other documents and have thoughts on those, it might be good to put them in the “Comments” doc too. Please let me know if this doesn’t make sense.
Best,
Stephanie
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Good morning all,
An updated version of the report based on your feedback has been added to Teams, titled GR Committee Report 10.13.2023, for one final round of comments. With the third charge being so different from the first two we think it is best to provide two separate reports. Both reports are included in the same file for ease of review.
We are working to get our preliminary meeting scheduled with Susan, Ehab, and Madhu. We hope we can present to them in the next few weeks so please take a few minutes in the next week or two to review.
Thanks
Jeremy
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Good afternoon
Steph and I are scheduled to present the committee’s recommendations next Tuesday afternoon. We would like to send the final version of our recommendations to leadership no later than Friday so they have a few days to review in advance. If you have any final comments please add them to the document in Teams by noon tomorrow.
Thanks
Jeremy
I'm doing some work with the USFWS on an urban pollinator habitat project and have a couple questions I'm hoping F&S can help me with (or send me in the right direction.)
Thanks,
BRODIE DUNN
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Beth, are you able to assist with item 1 in the below email from Brodie regarding obtaining a map or GIS file of UIUC properties?
Morgan, are you able to assist with item 2 in the below email from Brodie regarding upcoming capital projects?
Thanks,
James Scherer
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Helo Brodie,
I’m connecting you with the University Landscape Architect, Brent Lewis. He can assist with your inquiry about upcoming construction projects, and it is important to include him in any plans you want to pursue regarding additional plantings on university land.
Thanks,
Morgan
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Morgan and Brent,
Rest assured I haven't made any promises regarding plantings on campus (and would reach out to you both before doing so.)
The primary program partner is the City of Champaign, which I am currently in discussions with. If the project does go through, it'll target underserved neighborhoods with pollinator conservation measures meant to protect/conserve the Rusty Patch Bumble Bee, an endangered species. It is a great opportunity and beside doing the coordination for the project with municipal partners, i'm doing my best to ensure we've got the option to physically participate in the program even if the lands we might have available are outside the model's ideal range.
Brent - If we have any construction projects happening in the next two years that include major changes in landscaping, especially on the north side of campus, it would be good to hear about those. Participating in the program might end up being as simple as swapping out a few species on the planting list and doing so might give us the opportunity to be a part of a very innovative Endangered Species recovery plan.
Thanks,
BRODIE DUNN
All, Made some headway on the abandoned bikes and already have six on the sales floor. We tabled at the Green Quad Day last week as well. This week I’ll work on tallying inventory--and the marketing/publicity—for the Kids Bike Giveaway as well as getting regular bikes up for sale.
The numbers:
Visitors: 47
Sales: $862
Build-a-Bike: 1 for $40
Memberships: 14 for $420
Tire/tubes: 17 for $131
Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
Coordinator -- Campus Bike Center
Hi.
Have we been looking at this as an option for storing solar energy?
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/17/1063391/super-hot-salt-battery/
https://www.verifiedmarketresearch.com/blog/top-molten-salt-thermal-energy-storage-companies/
https://www.maltainc.com/challenge/
Cheryl Bicknell
Currently, 70 of the first 80 building dashboards are complete, which represents 92% of the University's energy consumption. Many of the dashboards are visible on building video displays for all building occupants to view. They continue to vet the data streams and will add more dashboards as they continue our efforts in the future. We contract Hawkeye Energy Solutions to develop and maintain the dashboards.
This project is in progress, with the primary challenge being the insufficient number of participants to maintain the meadow. One proposed solution under consideration is to engage students through fieldwork.
There is a prospect for collaboration between the iCAP Education and iCAP Land and Water teams to develop a course that would involve students in the maintenance of the meadow.
Hello Morgan & Jennifer.
Matt Rundquist (CCed) and I are looking at developing real-time energy dashboards for campus transparency at the request of the VCAS.
Can you share if/how that project is going at UIUC? I googled around a bit but most of the content seems a bit outdated…
Energy Dashboard Project (Ongoing) | iCAP Portal | University of Illinois
Any thing you can share is helpful and happy to jump on a call if that’s faster.
Thanks for your help.
Andy Mitchell
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Rob,
Colleagues at UIC are interested in UIUC’s Energy Dashboard Project. However, the information on the dashboard stops at FY14 and the links to the building-level information are broken. I see a lot of value in this project for campus. Is there any way to reinvigorate the project and update the content?
Let me know if there is something iSEE can do to help.
Thank you,
Jennifer
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Hello Jennifer,
Thanks for reaching out to UES on this topic. I am glad to hear that people have an interest in the UIUC energy dashboards. Our team has done a great job on this initiative, and we are leading the efforts amongst our peers. In fact, UIUC and vendor staff will be presenting this topic at the International District Energy Association Campus Energy Conference this February. We am quite proud of the success we have achieved in this area.
In reference to the UIC system, I actually had worked on developing energy dashboards at UIC when I was the Director of UES there. We had some success, but the product was a bit difficult to maintain. I believe that support for those UIC dashboards has ended.
After receiving your email, I reached out to the Engineering/Consultant firm that I worked with to develop dashboards for both UIC and UIUC. Aaron Mason from Hawkeye Energy Solutions (Shorewood, IL) informed me that the platform that they are using at UIUC is a “much better, lightweight, and responsive” then the solution that was originally used at UIC. The underlying data streams at both campuses are similar, so the development of dashboards for UIC should be relatively easy.
Regarding the link that was provided for the UIUC dashboards; that link is actually an old link that is no longer supported. Please use this link to view the new dashboards at UIUC: http://uesdash.fs.illinois.edu/ . This system does not require a login, and is easy to navigate. We currently have 70 of the first 80 building dashboards completed, which represents 92% of the University energy consumption. Many of the dashboards are visible at building video displays for all building occupants to view. We continue to vet the data streams and will add more dashboards as we continue our efforts into the future.
To help you and Andy resolve any questions, I am including the following people on the cc so that you can reach out to them directly if it helps you in your efforts.
Hopefully this answers your questions. If not, please don’t hesitate to contact me for more information. We welcome the opportunity to work together.
Thanks,
Rob
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Hi Rob,
Thanks so much for this information and for reaching out to your colleague at Hawkeye Energy Solutions. I’m pleased to see that this project is going strong!
If it’s ok with you, I would like to update the iCAP portal with this information, especially the URL for the new dashboards.
Andy, if there is anything else we can help with, please let use know.
Jennifer
The Land & Water iCAP team met on Teams from 1-2 PM on Friday, October 6th. The team reviewed the iCAP Land & Water objectives, discussed area/projects of focus for the year, and brainstormed next steps in relation to projects that are underway. Meeting minutes are attached.
Hi, Steve. A News-Gazette Mailbag question for you:
"The University of Illinois has 2 large solar farms near Savoy. How are they doing compared to expectations? What percentage of the UofI power do they provide? Are there any plans for more? If so ... where and when will they be built?"
(I rooted around a bit on the F&S energy/utility pages, and found a lot of info. Figured I'd best ask you, though, for the most current data.)
Thank you,
KR
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Hi Morgan/Mike/Tony,
Do we have updated FY23 data that can be shared to answer the question about current output of both arrays as it relates to expected performance and the percentage of electrical demand?
A similar question was answered in March 22', please see attached. I have addressed the second part with the below statement previously (let me know if there is any update is needed there as well or if that can be used again).
The university is evaluating the potential procurement of additional clean energy through an off-campus virtual power purchase agreement to meet Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) goals.
I would like to finalize the information and reply by Wednesday, October 4. Thanks for your help with this.
Steve B.
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Steve,
Here is the information being requested. I would like Rob to have a chance to comment on the last sentence before you respond.
Both Solar Farms are performing as expected. Solar Farm 2.0 produced 99% of the vendor’s guaranteed production in the first two years of operation. Solar Farm 1.0 produced 96% of estimated production over a two year period. In FY23 the solar production was 6.6% of the campus electricity demand. The University is considering another solar project, but the location and timing have not been determined yet.
Best,
Tony
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I would suggest that the final sentence state something such as: “While there are no immediate plans to add further solar capacity to the system, the University continues to evaluate and consider a multitude of carbon neutral energy solutions that would provide benefit to the Universities energy portfolio, including additional solar array capacity.”
Rob Roman
Dear Carrie,
Yilan Xu and Madhu Khanna shared your name with me. I am the Associate Director of Campus Sustainability for the Institute for Sustainability, Energy and the Environment (iSEE), and I coordinate implementation of the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) with colleagues at iSEE and F&S. I am writing today to invite you to join the Resilience iCAP Team.
The Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) outlines a path for the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to achieve carbon neutrality as soon as possible, and no later than 2050, and to work with our local communities to build resilience to climate change. There are 56 specific SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based) objectives crafted in pursuit of this goal, grouped into eight key themes: Energy, Transportation, Land & Water, Zero Waste, Education, Engagement, Resilience, and Implementation. You can find the list of objectives for all themes here.
The iCAP teams are organized around these seven themes and comprised of students, faculty, staff, and a paid student clerk who work together to advocate for the advancement of the iCAP objectives. The Resilience iCAP Team specifically works to bring campus and the surrounding communities (Champaign, Urbana, Savoy) together to address what must be done to prepare for vulnerabilities to extreme weather and other results of climate change. Given your experience in community-level disaster preparedness and mitigation planning, we think you would be an excellent resource for the Resilience Team.
Teams meet at least once per month during the academic year to develop recommendations aimed at advancing the iCAP objectives, which are then reviewed by the iCAP Working Group, co-chaired by Morgan White and myself. Recommendations that are positively reviewed by the iWG are either transmitted to units for implementation or brought to the Sustainability Council for further review. The role of staff members on teams is to share ideas and knowledge, and assist with information gathering in support of campus sustainability goals. Paid student clerks are responsible for logistics, including scheduling meetings, working with the team chair to set the agenda for meetings, note-taking, and reporting.
If you have any questions or would like to discuss this opportunity further, please let me know. I look forward to your response!
Best,
Jennifer
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Jennifer-
Are the meetings in person or virtual? I would love to participate, but not sure I can be on campus every month. I current serve on the ECOP(Extension Community of Practice) Program Area Team (PAT) for climate change. This national Extension initiative is looking at broader research and programming goals, but there seems to be a good synergy between the two. If you could give me a little more information on when and how the team meets, I would like to be involved.
Carrie
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Carrie,
The team meets virtually and the first meeting is this Friday, October 6, at 9 AM on Teams. Morgan White is serving as the chair, Mirim Keep (iSEE) is the vice-chair, and Claire Keating is the student clerk. I copied Claire so that she can share the details for the upcoming meeting in the event that you are able to attend.
It would be great to have you on-board!
Best wishes,
Jennifer
All, Big news of last week is the abandoned bikes. Bike Project folk and I were able to take an inventory of the bikes that are available and given the number of bikes—fewest in my tenure!—we are not partnering with Working Bikes this year. I communicated as much last week and no hard feelings. If anything, they’re happy to hear we have less bike waste—and they would know, they’ve got a 3 story building full of bikes.
This week we have a couple new staff members starting here. We’ll do some off-hours training with them.
The numbers:
Visitors: 40
Sales: $1,030.50
Memberships: 18 for $540
Tires/tubes: 27 for $212
Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
Coordinator -- Campus Bike Center
Following the deadline day to claim impounded bicycles, Sarthak Prasad reached out to Jake Benjamin, campus bike center coordinator, to inform that these bicycles are now considered donated to the Campus Bike Center and the Bike Project of Urbana-Champaign. See the email below:
Hi Jake,
The deadline to claim impounded bicycles have passed, so you can start checking the bicycles in the barn now. These bicycles are now considered donated to the Campus Bike Center and the Bike Project. I have the serial number information for almost all of those bicycles in the spreadsheet as well. We had about 240ish bicycles to start with and 24 bicycles were returned this year.
Thank you,
Sarthak
Please see attached.
All, Pretty standard week. Busy with some wait time on stands/repairs most days. Had a Build-a-Bike completed—always a good thing. My team and I did Light the Night on Tuesday at the Ikenberry Quad area. First time in a new location always gets us some looks and questions. Not as busy as we hoped but again, it’s not yet familiar to folks. No word yet on numbers.
We were dangerously overloaded on scrap by Friday, but Todd pick it up over the weekend—always appreciated.
This week I’ll do inventory of the abandoned bikes to see what’s worth keeping. Of note: Easily the fewest abandoned bikes in my tenure. I think my first year there were over 500 bikes left over. Maybe bike shares are really helping that issue (and maybe creating others)?
This week I’ll have two new staffers start. It’s apparently midterms, so reinforcements are paramount.
The numbers:
Visitors: 62
Sales: $1,122.50
Bikes (B-a-B): 1 for $50
Memberships: 20 for $600
Tires/tubes: 26 for $192
Thanks!
Jacob Benjamin
Coordinator -- Campus Bike Center
Hi Jen,
I was at the freezer challenge awards today and Julie Nguyen, a lab manager in vet med, asked about recycling plastic pipette tips. I wanted to put it on your radar for the Green Research discussions. She said that she had talked with Daphne about this also.
Fisher will accept them but for $70 a box. They are #5 plastic so can be recycled in C-U but not on campus. She said that she has been taking them to recycling herself. Her comments reinforce the lack of our ability to recycle lab waste on campus and also that there are motivated people taking the responsibility to do it themselves.
She could be a good candidate to bring into your Green Research discussion since Vet Med would deal with a lot of spooky stuff in their labs.
-Elizabeth
September 20, 2023 Green Research Committee Meeting 4
Present: Stephanie Hess, Tim Mies, Jennifer Fraterrigo, Paul Foote, Jeremy Neighbors, Shari Effert-Fanta, Lisa Moore, Morgan White, Chad Stevens, Sabrina Summers, Maisie Kingren, Daphne Hulse
Absent: Mitchell Bryant
High-level overview (Jeremy leads)