Hi Tony,

I met with folks from Housing yesterday about incorporating sustainability into RA training. Eric and Daphne were also on the call. We identified a few approaches for sharing content. I now need your help developing the materials.

One approach is to provide a short (3 min max) video for RAs to view, followed by questions to assess learning. As a framework, I suggest we use the sustainability guide that the interns developed with Meredith (attached). Do you have any video content that would be appropriate? The student training video is too long, but hits all the highlights. Is this something you could shorten? We need to send the video by mid/late June.

A second approach is to provide content for a microlearning session that would pair with the facilities session. They prefer a mixed mode approach, i.e., not just lecture/slides. We need to provide the content within the next two weeks. Is this doable? I shared the sustainability guide with them and am awaiting feedback.

A third approach is to distribute materials during the RA resource fair, which is held August 10th.

Finally, Housing is open to sharing information via their “Housing Insider” newsletter and digital platforms. It would be great to have your help developing content for those.  

Let me know what you think and we can also touch base at the management meeting today.

Thanks,

Jen

Hi Madhu and Ehab,

FYI, Students for Environmental Concerns is requesting Student Sustainability Committee funding ($1,000.00) to develop a database of U of I investments, in relationship to divestment. 

Madhu, this is sponsored by Yu-Feng Lin at PRI, but I don’t think he is aware of the history in these discussions.  Perhaps you would like to reach out to Yu-Feng, or touch base with Susan Martinis?  (I don’t know if small scale projects come through iSEE for funding approvals or only larger budget projects.)

Thanks,

Morgan

-----------------------------

Just circling back on this – I did discuss this with Susan and will be meeting with Yu-Feng and Praveen Kumar to give them the background on this.

Thanks

Madhu

Done:

• Added last updated date on Project page
• Project page:
  • Changed "Project History" heading to "Recent Project Updates"
  • Changed "View all project progress »" more link to "View all project updates »"
• Removed user & date/time from search results
• Added tracking date type (FY, monthly, etc.) to legend (e.g. Pedestrian and Bicycle Counts)

Discussion:

• Map marker popup display question (e.g. Energy theme map)
  
• Question about a TODO: "Collections page: Add image upload option". At a previous meeting we had this TODO, but what was the context? Was it to have a thumbnail for each Collection? Or a banner image?
• Should we link to "Take Action" project from homepage?
• Archiving projects
  • Add "Archived" checkbox?
  • Add "Archived" to Visibility options?
  • Add "Archived" to Project Status options? (probably not - this mixes the status of the project itself with whether we still want it to show up on the site)
  • Remove from nested listings, still publicly available?

TODO:

• Metric search/display:
  • Search text
  • Theme (via connected Project, i.e. Theme -> Project -> Metric)
  • Most recent updates as of: (list of years) -> can we query Tracking data?
  • (Internal only) Last updated before (list of years) -> can we query Tracking data?
• (Low Priority) Make column headers click-sortable on Projects by Project Status page
• Permissions:
  • Metric Tracking:
    • Add/update: iCAP Admins, iCAP Moderators, iCAP Advocates
    • Delete: iCAP Admins, iCAP Moderators, NOT iCAP Advocates
  • Metric Targets:
    • Add/update: iCAP Admins, iCAP Moderators, NOT iCAP Advocates
    • Delete: iCAP Admins, iCAP Moderators, NOT iCAP Advocates
• Fancy project layout mockups - keep tweaking #3 to improve contrast
• Discuss metrics
  • Metrics with lots of data
  • Consider how to handle old metrics that no longer track new data. Archive somehow?
  • Fun with math (e.g. combining multiple metrics)
  • Calculated Metrics on Dev site

On April 4th, the Land & Water iCAP team met to finish up two final recommendations for the year: State Farm Center Permeable Pavers and Paver Maintenance. 

Meeting minutes are attached. 

RailSplitter Wind Farm provided the March 2023 Buyer's Share amounts by hour, totaling 3,037.7 Megawatt hours.

The March 2023 Buyer's Share Report is attached below.

Brent, Morgan,

I am working with CSL on a small project for some solar panels near their satellite office in the North Campus Parking Garage. CSL mentioned that Canadian Solar is one of the approved suppliers to the campus.

You probably know that Canadian Solar, in spite of its name, is mostly a Chinese supplier, although they have a more modest plant in Canada. The largest Chinese supplier is Jinko Solar, which in my experience is a bit better in quality.

I am hoping we can spin up a higher-quality U.S. supplier, such as Sunpower, as an alternative to the various foreign providers.

Philip T. Krein, Ph.D., P.E.

----------------------------------

Hi Sush and Brian,

I am working on this research project at the North Campus Parking Deck to put solar panels on the canopy on the outside of the south side of the building.  They will be feeding them into a research space to power servers.  They actually want to have the panels directly power a battery and then power the servers from the battery.  I provided the cutsheets of the panels we used at the President’s Shed.  These fit the weight and size dimension requirements.  As we have used them before, they are therefore “pre-approved.”  One of the researchers, Philip, is asking about using something different in the email below.  Can you please assist in a response? 

Also, as far as I knew, we hadn’t done any large battery systems on campus.  Possibly that is incorrect, but in asking recently I came up with nothing.  Please take a look at the cutsheet for the enphase and see if we would be ok with this one.  If not, please provide some additional direction.

Thanks!

Brent.

----------------------------

Brent,

I’m not aware that we have approved “vendors” for solar panels nor for inverters and such equipment.  Also, I not aware of where we would have a PV system using storage, the few I’m familiar with are grid tie systems.

How big of a system are they looking at?

Brian Curtis Finet, PE

---------------------------

Brian,

We will still tie this to the grid as a back up, back up power supply.  They would have 18 panels total along that canopy. I know we don’t have any officially “approved” vendors, but since we used the ones at the President’s House, we had approved them through construction.  Originally the researchers picked out what they wanted, but the manufacturer didn’t want to deal with us, so I threw out using the ones we’ve already installed here at least once. 

I am not 100% certain if this is to power 3 new servers with 3 new batteries, or 3 new servers, with only one battery.  Based on the last email, it appeared we would only be looking at one battery for the backup.  I can put you in touch with the MEP if you would rather talk directly.

Thanks,

Brent.

---------------------

Brent,

Apart from Brian’s comments, here some things I would consider if the owner has concerns and this is how I would plan on choosing a panel vendor.

1. Panel Efficiency, Im talking about the amount of energy produced with respect to area. w/m2 (Also depends what type of panel polycrystalline or monocrystalline). Higher the panel efficiency higher is the energy produced per m2.
2. Next is quality, Chinese panel have a reputation of being made of cheap material but Canadian solar has been good performing for its price. It can measured by knowing history of the panel performance.
3. Warranty, I would compare at the 10 years manufacturer warranty and make sure there isn’t any expensive service contract involved. Also key to understand where so you have to send the panel incase you receive a faulty one.
4. Panel specifications are another factor, compare characteristics like coefficient of temperature & power tolerance.
5. Lastly, cost and aesthetics, since it is on the canopy I would think they want something pretty and cost, how much are they willing to shell.

My final thoughts - Sunpower has a better rating, reliability and warranty compared to Canadian solar (last I checked its been a year or so) but it also comes at higher $$.

Thanks,

Sushanth Girini

Jen and Morgan asked Brent Lewis about the use of plugs instead of seeds. They also want to explore partnering with schools and community groups to collect seed from local sources and that The Urbana Free Library has a seed library, in which we could help encourage participation.  Also, Jen would like to engage University Primary School, which is adjacent to the prairie where students found a lot of milkweed. One of their lessons is about monarchs. Milkweed pods are easy to harvest in the fall.

Brent responded with the following message:

Hi Jennifer,

If we are doing butterfly weed on the main part of campus, then I want to use plugs.  For this recommendation, we’ve shifted to enhancing the low mow areas.  In that case, we are talking about a huge amount of space.  Due to the easy nature of growing these from seed and the large impact we are looking for, having them broadcast seed through these zones is the most effective way of accomplishing this. 

We will make sure to get some out at the school there too.  That’s a great suggestion.

Thanks,

Brent.