The Land and Water iCAP team submitted the following LW002 Vet Med Parking Lot Re-Design recommendation on 4/2/21:

"This recommendation calls for a redesign of the Vet-Med parking lot F27 to reduce runoff and prevent flooding of the Dairy Farm. Project design recommendations would include adding stormwater infrastructure such as bioswales and raingardens within the redesigned parking lot, as well as to the west of the parking lot where much of the runoff from the asphalt currently flows. A student project, which placed first in the Central States Water Environmental Association Student Design Competition: Environmental Category addresses this issue, but the team recommends hiring a Professional Services Consultant team, consisting of a professional engineer and landscape architect for the design. It is possible that the firm may be willing to donate the design, which would reduce the cost."
 

The iWG met on 2-25-21 to discuss the Energy 004, Energy 005, and Resilience 002 iCAP team recommendations. Meeting minutes are attached.

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.