The Energy iCAP team made the following recommendation on 2/11/21. The Energy005 Modeling for Energy Code Compliance recommendation is attached. 

The aim of this recommendation is to ensure compliance of current and recent projects with State of Illinois Energy Codes and Facilities Standards

1. F&S will identify a contractor—which may be a student group or include a student group—capable of creating 25 models of building whole energy use in campus buildings. F&S will contract to provide electronic files so they can be run on a common platform such as Trane700, Energyplus, eQuest, DOE-2 or BLAST. Preference will be given to contractors who make maximum use of student effort.
2. F&S will identify five buildings completed recently but prior to 2019 for which breakdown meter energy use data is available, and five campus buildings currently under construction. F&S may identify buildings for which the required requested model energy files are available, at a cost saving on the project.
3. The contractor – in collaboration with a student group -- will complete for each of the ten buildings
   1. a model file of the building which follows the Energy Code prescriptive requirements (baseline energy model) in use at the time of construction in order to determine an Energy Cost Budget, (10 files)
   2. a model file of the building as constructed (10 files), and
   3. a determination of the level of compliance with Energy Codes and Facilities Standards in terms of design and construction.
4. For the five already-completed buildings, the contractor will calibrate the as-constructed model to fit the measured energy consumption data, using historical weather data. The calibrated model (5 files) should replicate actual energy use for a minimum of one year within 5% on a monthly basis and within 20% on a daily basis.
5. If energy modeling files are available in project files on a common platform listed above, and may be distributed, then this may be considered one of the deliverables, and the work need not be redone, at a cost saving for the project.
6. The contractor will provide a final report that describes the level of compliance in the ten buildings with the State of Illinois Energy Code (in use at the time of design and construction, as applicable) and Facilities Standards. The energy model files will be made available publicly, and primarily to students and faculty in engineering and architecture for their study.

Morgan White and Ximing Cai, the iWG co-chairs, returned the Trans012 Carpool Survey recommendation on February 2, 2021 with the following email. 

Hello Transportation iCAP Team,

The iCAP Working Group is continuing to work through the several SWATeam recommendations that were submitted in April 2020.  Ximing and I appreciate your patience with this process, which took some additional time due to the iCAP 2020 completion work (and the pandemic).

The Carpool Survey recommendation, Trans012, was initially submitted as a recommendation to conduct a survey, develop a plan, and implement a pilot program.  With the Campus as a Living Lab (CALL) project, Student Mobility on and around the Illinois campus, funded in Fall 2019, Ximing reached out to Dr. Ouyang this summer.  He shared this update, “Originally we were hoping to conduct not only the survey but also do an initial design of the service system (service model, business plan, resource assessment, economic analysis).” and “We were planning to send out the survey (as major task of the $9K seed project) in Spring 2020, but the topic (carpool service) was inappropriate under the COVID-19 environment -- the results would likely be heavily biased under the unusual circumstance.”

Because there is work underway through the CALL project, and while this work is on-hold for the pandemic, Ximing and I have decided to formally “return” this recommendation to your team.  We are very supportive of this project moving forward, once we are in the post-pandemic world.  Please consider this particular recommendation (Trans012) as closed.  When the CALL efforts are further along, we would be happy to see a new SWATeam Recommendation for the next steps. 

Thank you for all your excellent work!  We look forward to additional recommendations from your team.

Sincerely,

Morgan and Ximing

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See the Trans012 Carpool Survey submittal.

The Sustainability Council met November 17, 2020 on Zoom. The presentation from the meeting is attached. 

Following the completion of iWG assessment for Energy001 Anaerobic Digester, the recommendation was transmitted to German Bollero (ACES Associate Dean for Research) and Doug Wolters (Director of Operations, Facilities Planning and Management) on October 27, 2020.

See the submittal of Energy001 Anaerobic Digester.
See iWG assessment of Energy001 Anaerobic Digester attached.

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Good morning German and Doug,

On behalf of the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP) Working Group I am transmitting a recommendation from the Energy Sustainability Working Advisory Team (SWATeam) for your attention.  This recommendation is to identify a lead researcher in coordination with the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) to initiate a feasibility study for an anaerobic digester at the future dairy facility in the College of ACES. The original Energy001 recommendation from the SWATeam is attached here, as well as the iCAP Working Group’s assessment and an extended comment from one of our iWG student members, Jonah Messinger.

We appreciate your support during the development of the iCAP 2020, which was recently finalized and approved by Chancellor Jones at the Campus Sustainability Celebration. To see more, you can visit the iCAP 2020 page on the iCAP Portal at https://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/project/icap-2020-illinois-climate-action-plan. As a reminder, the iCAP includes this statement on page 67, “A promising future technology for the campus is an anaerobic digester that could accompany the construction of a new Dairy Facility. The proposed digester would use organic waste to produce biofertilizer and biogas, which could be upgraded to renewable natural gas (RNG) and processed into renewable compressed natural gas (CNG). The renewable CNG could then be used as fuel for the campus fleet.” Thank you again for your assistance with the development of this plan. 

For your info, the prior digester study was for an installation at the Beef and Sheep facility, and it was quite promising for research tied to ACES and Engineering. In 2014, we worked with Dr. Neal Merchen on the development of an ISTAR proposal with several of your faculty.  That effort was stalled with some leadership changes, but it is still available to be reviewed and enhanced in connection with the future dairy facility.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us or any member of the iWG.  We look forward to hearing your response to the recommendation, and we ask that you provide an official reply by November 20 addressing how you plan to move forward with this recommendation.  We look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Morgan and Ximing

Morgan White, Associate Director of F&S for Sustainability, responded to Dr. Ximing Cai with the following email. See the attached file for an overview of the building envelope testing pilot project.

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Hi Ximing,

Thank you for sharing the Energy002 SWATeam recommendation. As we discussed, F&S is pleased to move forward with this recommendation to do a Building Envelopes Pilot Project on campus.  We have submitted a request to the Student Sustainability Committee, seeking their support to run this pilot project.  We are also meeting with Bill Rose, the co-chair of the iCAP Energy Team, and several F&S team members to discuss first steps.  I’ve attached a project overview here, which we can share with the iCAP Working Group.

Thanks,

Morgan

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See transmittal of Energy002 Building Envelope to F&S here. 
See iWG assessment of Energy002 Building Envelope here.
See recommendation and submittal of Energy002 Building Envelope here. 

The iWG met on 7/8/2020 to review the iCAP 2020 process, updated objectives, and Sustainability Council feedback. The PowerPoint with the agenda is attached. 

Dr. Evan DeLucia, Director of iSEE, responded to Meredith Moore with the following email: 

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Good morning, Meredith

I’ve had a chance to review the iWG recommendations and discuss them with iSEE leadership. Both recommendations, the Environmental Leadership Program and Student Sustainability Ambassadors are creative, will provide students with new opportunities to engage in sustainability learning, and will have a positive impact on our iCAP goals.

The iWG should be aware that we are launching test modules as part of the leadership program this fall semester. iSEE has hired a coordinator to develop several learning modules, likely full day programs, on topics such as ‘environmental communications’ and ‘effective interviewing strategies’. We will use these modules to recruit faculty into the program, build partnerships, evaluate financial expenses, and evaluate student interest. If all goes well, these modules will serve as the components of full program. Once we have a better sense of the curriculum, we can also initiate fund raising activities.

The ambassadors program has real promise to advance campus’ iCAP goals and to more fully engage students in sustainability activities. That said, iSEE is not prepared to launch this program at this time. Not for lack of merit, but rather for lack of bandwidth. To properly launch the leadership program mentioned above is a significant undertaking and we want to make sure we do it well. While iSEE is not prepared to launch this program at this time, we will take an initial step to explore its viability by discussing the proposed course offering with NRES.

Please extend my thanks to the iWG and the SWATeams for their dedication to making Illinois more sustainable.

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See transmittal of Edu001 Environmental Leadership Program to iSEE here.

See iWG assessment of Edu001 Environmental Leadership Program here.

See SWATeam recommendation and submittal of Edu001 Environmental Leadership Program here. 

The Edu005 Sustainable Scholars Program recommendation was returned to the Education SWATeam on 6/9/2020. 

Morgan White writes, "Thank you for submitting the attached Edu005: Sustainability Scholars Program recommendation to the iCAP Working Group! The iWG agrees that, conceptually, this is a good proposal, and we are appreciative of the time and effort of the team to develop this recommendation. A few questions arose out of the iWG meeting on April 27, and we would like them addressed in order to fully evaluate this recommendation.

• How does the proposed Sustainability Scholars Program compare to the existing James Scholar Program?
• What are the requirements to participate in the program? Who would qualify?
• Who do you suggest would implement and oversee the program?

Providing additional information to supplement this recommendation will help clarify details necessary for future discussions for implementation. Thank you for your effort!"

See the submittal of the Edu005 Sustainable Scholars Program. The original recommendation is attached.