December 2020 Buyer's Share Report
RailSplitter Wind Farm provided the December 2020 Buyer's Share amounts by hour, totaling 2098.8 Megawatt hours. See attached file.
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RailSplitter Wind Farm provided the December 2020 Buyer's Share amounts by hour, totaling 2098.8 Megawatt hours. See attached file.
Attached are the meeting minutes from the Zero Waste SWATeam on 12/18/2020. The following agenda items were discussed:
The SSC approved $9,318.16 in funding in Fall 2020 for a Living Lab Platform at the CIF. This project expires 12/16/2022.
The SSC approved $60,000 in funding for re-home wall rehab and siding in Fall 2020. The project expires 12/16/2022.
Sol Systems published a blog today sharing information about the collaborations with the UIUC Sustainability, Energy, and Environment Fellows program, the campus-wide minor in sustainability.
"This past week, two groups of students from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign presented to Sol Systems regarding their findings through the university’s sustainability minor capstone course. The students conducted an emissions audit for supply chain and land-usage for the university’s second utility-scale solar project, Solar Farm 2.0, a 54-acre, 12.3 MW dc system on the Urbana campus that is being developed by Sol Systems. The presentation and partnership served as part of Sol’s sustainability initiatives and acts as the foundation for building Sol’s framework for future and current solar project developments...."
Read the full post online at https://www.solsystems.com/groundwork-for-solar-sustainability/.
The Daily Illini published an article about the impacts of covid-19 on the campus sustainability efforts. One key message is that, even with some delays associated with the pandemic, we are still determined to move forward. The conclusion of the article says:
Mohamed Attalla, executive director of Facilities and Services, said there are lots of initiatives to reach carbon neutrality in terms of energy and hopes to reach 400,000 metric tons of CO2 this year.
Attalla said the addition of a third solar farm, advances in geothermal energy and research in carbon capture contribute to achieving carbon neutrality and that long-term, COVID-19 should not be a problem.
“Maybe we’re behind a little in implementing some projects, but we’ll be able to catch up,” he said. “I don’t think there will be a long-term impact on the iCAP implementation.”
White also said she doesn’t anticipate any long-term problems with achieving the iCAP goals and believes it’s important for the University to lead by example when it comes to sustainability.
“I really believe that accomplishing the iCAP goals is something we can do, we need to do and we will do,” she said.
“Climate change isn’t waiting for us,” Edwards said. “(The University is) the laboratory for science, for humanities, for arts … all those kinds of things show what is possible of humanity.”
“If we’re going to call ourselves leaders, then we need to lead,” he said.
https://dailyillini.com/covid-10/2020/12/08/covid-19-pandemic-impacts-un...
Wes Ifft at Lanz, Inc. received the purchase order from campus in late November and ordered the related equipment before Nov. 30, 2020. The item had to come from the factory, as there was not one in the regional warehouse.
Geothermal heat exchanger systems consist of two main components: (1) heat pumps, and (2) ground loop. The heat pump capacity is associated with the capability of a GHP system to extract heat from the ground. The size of geothermal heat pumps is measured in tons where 1 ton = 12,000 btu/h, and determined according to the profile of the heating and/or cooling demand of the facility. Meanwhile, the loop field and its size in terms of length and depth are based on the size of equipment, soil type, and average temperature, and climate conditions.
Furthermore, other metrics measure the system performance and its efficiency. Coefficient of Performance (COP) is the ratio of useable thermal energy to the thermal equivalent of the electricity used to operate the system. Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER) represents the ratio between the cooling output (in Btu/h) and the energy (electricity) input (in Watt). Also, The SEER is a measure of central air conditioning efficiency over an entire season. Higher COP, EER, or SEER means higher heat pump efficiency.
The ground source heat exchanger system can be implemented in conjunction with an existing heating system that depends on another type of energy such as liquid propane. To accurately calculate the reduction in energy usage after the installation of a ground source heat exchanger, the system has to be modeled as a hybrid system. Detailed information (system type, fuel, capacity, power consumption, time of usage) of this hybrid system is needed to assess the adequacy of a GHP system's performance in addressing the building’s heating and cooling needs. Assuming that the ground heat exchanger design data and the existing system are known, then the actual performance metrics of the system may be simulated using commercially available software such as eQuest or GLHEPro.
Once the system is installed, a data collection system can measure, track, and report the actual performance of the ground heat exchanger system. First, determining the electricity consumption of a GHP system requires sub-metering of the GHP system. Second, is heat exchange performance data. This includes the measured entering/exiting water temperatures and circulation rates for the heat pump over time. Modern GSHP units already incorporate sensors to monitor energy usage and the entering and exiting fluid temperatures.
See https://bit.ly/2VpwHdg as well as research from https://www.geoexchange.org/.
RailSplitter Wind Farm provided the November 2020 Buyer's Share amounts by hour, totaling 3055.3 Megawatt hours. See attached file.
F&S Management Engineer, Sushanth Girini, provided an update on the Solar Farm 2.0 construction progress. One key point is that 65% of the panel installation is complete as of 11/23.
Points regarding the progress:
Thank you,
Sushanth Girini
Andrew Li, Halie Collins, and Morgan White met today to launch a student-led project to get an update for all the small scale solar projects on campus. Andrew will be reaching out to the project contacts over the next few months to get a status update and associated photos, links, etc. for each project. He will then update the iCAP Portal accordingly.
On November 17th, the Energy iCAP Team met to discuss student, staff, and chair priorities for forming new recommendations. The team decided on starting to develop three different recommendations in the future:
(1) Requiring campus buildings to comply with state Energy Code Compliance;
(2) Encouraging labs on campus to save energy;
(3) Educating students in residence halls about reducing energy consumption.
Agenda, meeting minutes, and chat log are attached.
Ryan Day submitted a proposal to the SSC for $70k in support of adding solar over the parking at Willard Airport. See attached files.
Past Project Based Learning students reached out to Tim Bannon at Willard Airport to propose adding solar carports over the parking lot.
Attached are the meeting minutes and chat from the Zero Waste SWATeam meeting on 11/13.
Discussed were the following topics:
Attached are the meeting minutes and chat from the Zero Waste SWATeam meeting on 11/13.
Discussed were the following topics:
The Fall 2020 iSEE Quarterly Update (iQ) was released with the following message from Madhu Khanna, the Interim Director of iSEE:
Dear Colleagues,
Attached, please find attached the Fall 2020 “iQ” – the quarterly update from the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE).
It has been two months since I became interim director of ISEE. It has been exciting to see ISEE bring in multimillion-dollar research grants, launch a new research initiative in regenerative agriculture, and help coalesce sustainable agriculture research on our campus during this period.
Our Certificate in Environmental Writing has engaged students in making insightful contributions to a new issue of Q Magazine. We have also expanded our opportunities for education and scholarly discourse with several online events, including those on nuclear energy and geothermal energy research.
We formally launched the new Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP 2020) on Oct 20, 2020. This ambitious plan is the result of the hard work of campus sustainability folks who worked hand-in-hand with Facilities & Services and incorporated the vision of hundreds of students, faculty, staff, administrators, and community members into a plan for the next five years and beyond — all the way to carbon neutrality no later than 2050!
I am so grateful to Evan Delucia for his efforts over the first seven years as the first director of our Institute. He has left iSEE as a vibrant part of the Illinois community, and I am working with our outstanding ISEE staff to expand upon the work already begun — as evidenced in this six-page update.
Please take a quick look at those updates and more in “iQ.” For more regular news, please sign up for our E-newsletter at https://illinois.edu/fb/sec/5031776.
Wishing you a successful end to the fall semester,
Madhu
RailSplitter Wind Farm provided the October 2020 Buyer's Share amounts by hour, totaling 2192.3 Megawatt hours. See attached file.
Dr. Mohamed Attalla, the Executive Director of Facilities and Services, recently spoke on the Solar Podcast about the progress made at the University of Illinois in regards to green energy with the addition of Solar Farm 2.0. Dr. Mohamed Attalla was alongside Pedro De La Barra, the Project Manager for Sol Systems, as they discussed the working relationship between the University and those at Sol Systems. Solar Farm 2.0 is expected to be producing solar energy in early 2021.
Please see the link below to listen to this podcast!
https://fs.illinois.edu/resources/newsroom/2020/10/28/podcast-dr.-attalla-joins-the-solar-podcast