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Projects Updates for key objective: No name

  3. Notes from discussion with Central Stores

    Associated Project(s): 
    Sustainable Procurement

    Ken Merrill gave an example of paper purchases:

    This year he has purchased 33,500 reams of virgin paper, 1073 reams with 30% recycled content, and 180 with 100% recycled content.  The means for this year 96.4 of the paper purchased through Central Stores has no recycled content. 

    • Computer purchasing commitment for EPEAT products does not exist although some colleges may have one.
    • Vendor Code of Conduct – Ken does not know of one.
    • Environmental Indicators for purchasing – None other than possibly regarding diversity.
    • Uses Life-Cycle Analysis – No
    • Incorporate disposal costs into the product costs – No
    • Minimum recycling standards – No
    • Green Cleaning Products – Yes, everything is green seal certified

    He said he was happy to purchase whatever the units want, but they have to want it.

     

  5. display information

    Associated Project(s): 
    Energy Dashboard Project

    Slides will play on all 3 working digital displays at BIF. Unfortunately, we're having hardware issues with the display facing the Sixth Street entrance. The IlliniEnergy images will take up the entire interactive region of the digital display. However, the images will not take up the space on the footer and right-hand portion of the display, as we already have student groups scheduled to run information on those spaces.

    Images will run through December 20. We would be happy to keep a small number of the slides in the rotation after December 20.

  6. Status update

    Associated Project(s): 
    Energy Dashboard Project

    The display ppts have been distributed and can go on as a static display.  We than the Comminication office of our college for moving forward and we will be ready for testing when the students come back Dec 2.

  7. Illinois Earns Gold Recognition from STARS!

    Associated Project(s): 
    Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System™ (STARS)

    Illinois completed the STARS submission in June 2013. STARS is the most comprehensive sustainability rating system in the country.  The rating system is divided into 4 categories: education and research; operations; planning, administration and engagement; and innovation. STARS rates institutions on 5 levels: platinum, gold, silver, bronze and reporter. Illinois has achieved the Gold Level Recognition, and no institution thus far has achieved Platinum.  

    Attached Files: 

  8. Indoor Air Quality info

    Associated Project(s): 
    Building-Level Energy Efficiency

    The Radiation Safety Section of the Division of Research Safety addresses all matters relating to radiation safety on the campus.

    About campus radon policies, our approach is to use the EPA action levels as the standard for radon exposure. We do not have an ongoing testing program on campus, but when the issue was first raised many years ago there was a comprehensive testing program in campus buildings and they showed low radon levels. - David Scherer, Associate Director of the Radiation Section at the Division of Research Safety

  10. Notice to selected buildings

    Associated Project(s): 
    Waste Stream Characterization Study Phase 1

    From: "Rients, Seth M" <rients@illinois.edu> Date: November 4, 2013 at 2:13:15 PM  Cc: "Johnston, Morgan B" <mbjohnst@illinois.edu>, "Osby, Tracy L" <tosby@illinois.edu>, "Jacobson, Debra F" <djacobso@illinois.edu> Subject: Building Waste Stream Characterization                   I am pleased to announce that your building has been selected by Facilities and Services to be one of the four buildings in a pilot waste stream characterization study for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. This study is designed in support of the campus wide Zero Waste policy which aims to increase the waste diversion rate to 75% by the year 2020. Facilities and Services has partnered with the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC), a unit of the Prairie Research Institute at U of I, to perform this waste stream characterization study.                   ISTC will begin examining solid waste outflows from your building during the week of November 11th, for a period of one week. During this time all discarded materials from your building will be collected, sorted, weighed, and documented in an effort to create a baseline measurement for waste diversion activities. The first step in this process is to have a kickoff meeting at your facility so we can discuss in person any thoughts, cares, concerns, or questions that you may have. We would like to schedule a meeting for this Thursday, November 7th at 2 pm. This meeting shouldn’t last more than 30 minutes. Attached to this sheet you will find some questions and answers that have been previously asked of ISTC.   Thank you for your time,   Seth Rients, PSM Project Manager for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign waste characterization study Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (217) – 300 – 4494  

  11. F&S electronics shutdown policy

    Associated Project(s): 
    Update and Enforce Campus Computer Policy
    • Electronic Devices Shutdown Policy – Effective Immediately

    As an energy conservation method, F&S is implementing a policy for all individuals to turn off any electronic devices in your office before leaving for the day.  This includes desktop computers, printers, monitors, etc.  Be advised that when you reboot your computer and a patch or update is waiting, it will load and may request a system reboot.  This policy does not include mission critical systems.

  12. FY13 ECIP Award Winners Announced

    Associated Project(s): 
    Energy Conservation Incentive Program (ECIP)

    Energy Advancement Category

    1. Atmospheric Sciences Building            53.3%
    2. Spurlock Museum                                      44.5%
    3. Main Library                                                 43.1%
    4. Grainger Engineering Libra                    41.3%

    Occupant Action Category

    1. Undergraduate Library                            35.2%
    2. Law Building                                                  35.1%
    3. Christopher Hall                                          30.6%
    4. Henry Administration Building             28.4%

  13. Approval to hire Zero Waste Coordinator

    Associated Project(s): 
    Establish a Net Zero Waste Plan and Policy

    The Executive Director of Facilities and Services approved hiring a Zero Waste Coordinator today.  This will be a half-time academic hourly position, working with Tracy Osby at the Waste Transfer Station and Morgan Johnston in Sustainability.  The candidate has been selected, and the job description is attached here.

    Attached Files: 

  14. Explanation of calculations

    Associated Project(s): 
    Energy Conservation Incentive Program (ECIP)

    We take total energy usage by building (electricity, Steam, Nat Gas and Chilled Water) convert all of those to one common unit, MMBTU (million British Thermal Units) and after adjusting for the weather differences between years, compare each building's annual usage with the year before.  We then convert the change into a percentage and then rank all eligible buildings by percentage saved.  The top four in each category win first through fourth.     Having won in FY13 does not disqualify you from winning in the future.  The goal is to encourage individual contributions to saving energy.   Mike Marquissee

  15. Agriculture Bioprocess Lab

    Associated Project(s): 
    Lighting Retrofit #5 [ARCHIVED]

    As part of the Lighting Retrofit #5, 436 T-12 fixtures in the Agriculture Bioprocess Lab were replaced with more energy-efficient T-8 fixtures. This switch will incur an Annual kWh Savings of 68,289 hours. The simple payback for this project is 3.62 years.

  16. Videos

    Associated Project(s): 
    Install Solar PVs on NCPD [ARCHIVED]

    We are pleased to provide the two animated files discussed at yesterday’s final presentation of the N. Campus Parking Deck Solar Array Conceptualization:

    • Hanno Weber’s ramp-up animation
    • Time lapse showing the construction of a parking garage solar installation

    Please click the following link to access these two items, and feel free to forward the link to colleagues who would be interested but were not at Thursday’s meeting.     https://pepractice.box.com/s/suegtnts53iasbhvvohp

  19. data about our avoided electrical costs

    Associated Project(s): 
    Use Clean Power

    To really understand the cost avoidance from clean energy, campus needs to compare the renewable electricity costs to the specific costs for buying electricity from the grid.  To do that we need to know that AMIL.peic is the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign MISO Node.

  20. Meeting with Madhu's team, Morgan, and Mike

    Associated Project(s): 
    Energy Dashboard Project

    Mike Marquissee and Morgan Johnston met with Madhu Viswanathan's team. The students were Doug, Julie, Ophelia, Tim, Colin. Colin is the point person and James scholar.

    They said their goal is to raise awareness with students about the power going to buildings and how we could be more efficient and more sustainable.  They have gathered feedback from some students about the current website (illinienergy.illinois.edu).

    Mike explained that Illinois has had a successful conservation program.  We have hit all the low hanging fruit, including retro commissioning, tightened facility standards, building controls replacements, and better monitoring.  We have already reaped the benefit of those major projects. Next phase is to identify and find ways to influence behvaior change...  How can we make people aware and how can we make people commit to... Get them behind our goals and use the tools?

    Deliverable from Madhu's team would be a website, a display app, and a business plan for implementing the dashboard. First, just getting a website to try it out.  More accessible and understanding.  Tips on how it works.

    The students will learn by doing.  Also a display going in Wohlers or BIF.  Mike brought examples of three versions of similar websites.  Arizona State University uses Lucid and they have an extra section that shows what can be done to reduce energy in a bedroom or an office.  Penn State uses Excelsius and runs their dashboard in flash... It has dials, et cetera.

    Our website uses Html5, soap commands, scrape websites.  F&S can provide the source code for our dashboard to access the source data.  Mike's team hasn't tried it yet, but they know the data is accessible.  Tim and Mike can work together to get the data.

    Morgan noted that the audience needs to include faculty and staff, not just students. Madhu agreed.  They are just starting with the students.

    Doug asked what sort of information should be included on a poster. Morgan said that the Energy Liaison presentations would be good starting points.  They are on the iCAP Portal, which the students had not yet seen.

    The website design has multiple options, which the team will evaluate and suggest best layouts.  Also, the physical display itself will be considered. BIF has a proprietary display. Also the campus has digital signage options. Typically it is a continuous display, rather than interactive.  Mike said F&Sdoes not have the data set up to push it out, but we can give access for it to be pulled out.

    Todd Sweet from the College of Business communications office joined us.  They are looking into developing mobile apps for the college.  One could be an App about energy consumption in BIF and such.  Students are looking at how the website can be designed.  Also what would the display potentially have?  

     

     

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