https://ece.illinois.edu/about/calendar/eceb-anniversary
The Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Building at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign was certified as the university’s first zero-energy facility in January 2023. Join the ECE Department and The Grainger College of Engineering to celebrate this milestone on the path to building a more sustainable future.
Hi Rob and Tony,
Tim Mies asked me who “owns” the RECs from small scale solar arrays at individual buildings. I said I’d have to check into it.
Below is a newsletter regarding ECE's zero energy certification.
Attached is the retirement transaction confirmation from M-RETS (the regional entity that issues unique certificates for the environmental attributes), and the JV for the REC charge.
In the atrium of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Building (ECEB), there are two kiosks where people can sign various pledges related to decreasing energy use. Two solar-powered phone chargers will be raffled off to those who have signed the pledge during Campus Sustainability Month, October 2021.
After discussions with Michael McKelvey at MSTE and Aaron Mason and Ian Bonadeo at Hawkeye Energy Solutions, since Morgan White put them in contact back in April, the ECE building’s energy dashboards are now available without requiring a login and via domain name rather than IP address! Here are the dashboards:
Joyce Mast is working with Patricia Franke to refine the ECE energy displays to include the effect of local weather on the solar panels. F&S Utilities and Energy Services is connecting Joyce with the contact people at Hawkeye Energy Solutions, who incorporated real-time energy data in the ECE energy dashboard, using campus data provided by F&S.
ECEB solar panels have been generating power since April 2020. Building energy use is offset by the ECEB solar panel production and, since February when a contract between F&S and ECE has been in place, the excess energy use not offset by the ECEB solar panels is being replaced through solar renewable energy credits (SRECS) from Solar Farm2. These credits are being paid for by the ECE Power and Energy group.
From: McKelvey, Michael L
Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2021 10:10 AM
To: White, Morgan
Subject: ECE building energy dashboards
Hi Morgan,
A document of ideas brainstormed for the displays and kiosks in the ECE lobby was sent to Joyce Mast by F&S contacts. These ideas were created with the goal of having students actively engage with the display through physical interaction, as well as passive engagement while students look at the stations in passing.
Joyce Mast met with MSTE and F&S contacts today to brainstorm ideas for energy and atmospheric data to be displayed in the ECE lobby on the digital touch screen.
During a conversation between U of I staff across multiple departments, the following resources were compiled to brainstorm content for the display and kiosks in the ECE lobby:
Objectively, everyone knows you should conserve energy resources, but it is easy to lose track of that goal in the hundreds of other things our brains need to think about each day. One way to encourage people to be more cognizant is to give them a tangible reminder. The local electric company, for example, sometimes send a reminder notice that tells you how well you’re doing with energy consumption compared to other homes the size of yours in the area. In a similar idea, F&S has developed an improved energy dashboard that will be used in campus facilities.
We met today to discuss the plans for the ECE Net-Zero Energy certification.
During the first meeting, Morgan gave Nynika (undergraduate volunteer) an overview on details relating to the certification including RECS and how the certification program works. Her next steps include:
As of March 01, 2021, many small edits and content ideas were suggested for ECEB-related project pages on the iCAP Portal. These suggestions to update the pages were provided by Joyce Mast and include the following:
On February 28, 2021, Catherine Somers sent out an email to Professors Bruce Hajek and Philip Krein regarding the ECE lobby displays. As written in the exciting email:
"I have a bit of good news! The Student Sustainability Committee-funded lobby display which will eventually have interactive features to encourage energy savings, is taking shape. The kiosks and the touchscreen panel are installed and rotating informational slides. Joyce Mast continues to make excellent progress on the real-time display of solar energy production." -Catherine Somers
Joyce Mast from ECE and Morgan White from F&S met today to review the status of the ECE Net Zero Energy Certification efforts. Joyce is going to review the open questions Morgan sent earlier this year, and reach out to the Living Futures folks to clarify whether we can pursue the certification for calendar year 2020 using solar power produced in calendar year 2021 from Solar Farm 2.0. Morgan is going to find a student in the sustainability circles to help complete this paperwork and have her intern calculate the total energy consumption for ECE from calendar year 2020, using EBS data.
I am on the team that did the Retrocommissioning project in 2018 and I would be happy to share some of our knowledge from that process. Below is the link to a presentation of that project that we took to a Big Ten energy conference. Some of our main takeaways are that the combination of chilled beams, dual HX wheels, coil sizing, occupancy ventilation, and thoughtful building pressurization have led to one of the most efficient buildings on campus. A
