The Energy iCAP team met on Monday 3/27/23 to discuss recommendations on energy standards for newly constructed buildings and improving communication of energy research on campus between labs and the broader campus community.
View the recording: https://mediaspace.illinois.edu/media/t/1_9vmyh6sl
The following text is taken from the February iSEE Newsletter, which is attached below.
LEED Green Associate Training Offered Online. Students can prepare for the LEED Green Associate exam through this online course offered by LeadingGreen and taught by a U.S. Green Building Council faculty member. Register for a live webinar or complete the on-demand recordings at your own pace. Questions? Watch this introductory video or email Lorne Mlotek at info@leadinggreen.com.
Live webinars Feb. 24, March 12, April 2, April 23, May 15 | Register here
USGBC offers information on LEED Certification Fees. This includes information on the initial flat registration fee, rates for certification fees, member discounts, policies, and more.
Visit the USGBC website to read more about LEED Certification Fees.
From: Lewis, Brent C
To Trimble, Sydney M; White, Morgan
Recipients: sydneyt2 at illinois.edu; mbwhite at illinois.edu
Hi Sydney and Morgan,
Last Friday I said I would send you some info on Altgeld. Here is a good one on the stained glass dome:
Piecing together a colorful mystery | College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at Illinois
Trust-Respect-Accountability-Integrity-Teamwork-Safety-Perseverance
BRENT C. LEWIS, PLA, CA
Capital Programs, University Landscape Architect
1501 South Oak Street
Champaign, IL 61820
Phone: 217.300.3164
Email: bcl at illinois.edu
"Under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), any written communication to or from University
employees regarding University business is a public record and may be subject to public disclosure."
Renewable energy at the UI "How much power is each of the renewable (University of Illinois) sources generating? How many houses can each provide power for? Are there plans to add more than what we currently have? How many years does it take for the cost of each to be paid off? We have a growing interest in this and many homes now also have this."
Morgan White, the UI's associate director of Facilities & Services for sustainability, has all your answers.
As for power generation, she said that the UI's "on-campus solar arrays are now capable of producing over 25,000 megawatt-hours (MWh) per year and we purchase an additional 25,000 MWh/year from an off-campus wind farm in Illinois.
"For a more comprehensive answer:
"The (Illinois Climate Action Plan) 2020, objective 2.3.1 is: 'Use at least 140,000 MWh/year of clean power by FY25.' This objective is about clean power, which is different from clean thermal energy. As of 2020, there are three types of clean power options being pursued or used on campus.
"1. Solar Energy on Campus: installing solar photovoltaic panels on campus property
"2. Wind Energy on Campus: installing wind turbine generators on campus property
"3. Power Purchase Agreements for Clean Energy: purchasing solar or wind power from off-campus
"FYI, Solar Farm 2.0 is projected to produce 20,000,000 kWh/year. It began production at the end of January, so there will only be 5 of 12 months production in the FY21 totals (this current fiscal year)."
As for the number of houses each can provide power for, White said, "At Facilities & Services, we use the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) for the average power use in an American home. It currently says, 'In 2019, the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer was 10,649 kilowatthours (kWh).”
"Thus, the FY20 clean power use on campus (30,635,993 kWh) was the equivalent of the power needed for 2,876 houses. Once Solar Farm 2.0 is operating for an entire year, that will be about 50,000,000 kWh/year of clean power use on campus, which is the equivalent to the power needed for 4,717 houses."
And about whether more generation will be added, she said: "The recently released Illinois Climate Action Plan 2020 (iCAP 2020) includes a goal for increasing clean power use to 140,000 MWh/year by FY25. We are currently having internal discussions at the University of Illinois about initiating a large off-campus solar power purchase agreement to meet this goal. We are also continuing to pursue clean thermal energy solutions, such as geothermal. Additionally, large construction projects on campus are required by the state law to be LEED certified, and this will often entail the addition of clean energy systems for individual buildings."
The payback period for each of these systems varies widely due to several factors, she said.
"For example, the geothermal system for the Campus Instructional Facility is projected to pay for itself in 28 years, while Solar Farm 2.0 is saving money in year one," said White. "For local projects off-campus these programs are very helpful: the Solar Urbana-Champaign program typically finds solar installations to pay for themselves in six or seven years, and the Geothermal Urbana-Champaign program typically finds a geothermal system at a residential home can pay for itself within 10 years."
https://www.news-gazette.com/toms-mailbag/toms-mailbag-feb-12-2021/artic...
The Facilities Standards for LEED certification are getting updated to reflect LEED V.4. and to include resources for specific LEED points.
There is a LEED green associate training program offerred on campus at https://leadinggreen.com/Illinois/.
The new version of LEED (v.4) requires shower facilities for bicyclists as a pre-requisite. The LEED point is described online at https://www.usgbc.org/credits/neighborhood-development-plan-neighborhood-development/v4-draft/sllc4.
See attached the report "Influence of LEED on Water Consumption & Cost: Business Instructional Facility vs. Undergraduate Library" as submitted by Lucia Dunderman, Dustin Frye and Olivia Yu for their project in ENVS301.
The previous project description began with this statement: "The University has adopted LEED Gold certification as a part of their design standards on all new construction." However, the Facility Standards and the Campus Master Plan were not aligned with each other. During the update to the Facility Standards and update to the Campus Master Plan in 2017, the campus leadership determined that the appropriate requirement for new construction buildings is LEED Silver, to comply with minimum state legal requirements.
The 2010 iCAP included a focused effort on the use of LEED Certification to incorporate sustainable design in new capital construction on campus. In the 2015 iCAP, campus sustainability advocates recognized that "While the utilization of current building certification programs such as LEED has helped raise awareness of sustainable building standards, the campus could accelerate progress in reducing building energy use by shifting to performance based building standards for new buildings and major renovations." The 2010 iCAP LEED goals are documented here, for the archive.
2010 iCAP LEED Goals:
Require all new construction to be LEED Platinum certified by FY15:
The LEED certification requirements were increased in fiscal year 2011 to require Gold level certification for all new projects. This has increased the visibility and sustainability of all new campus buildings. There is a proposal from the 2010 iCAP to increase the certification requirement to Platinum level in fiscal year 2015. This increase would require additional funding for new building projects, and in some cases there may be conflicts with building codes or campus Standards.
Completed LEED Goals:
Incorporate LEED principles into Facility Standards:
The Facility Standards for campus have been updated to incorporate many LEED principles. As of 2012, a building that meets all the Facility Standards, will qualify for a LEED Silver designation. Additionally, new buildings, additions, or major renovations are required to meet LEED Gold certification. The additional points to acheive LEED Gold are selected by the individual project teams, rather than prescribed specifically in the Facility Standards.
The 2010 U of I Facilities Standards have been published and are currently based on LEED Gold certification. The U of I Facilities Standards require compliance with all 8 Required Prerequisites and several additional Credits listed in the LEED Rating System. The Standards list some minimum technical requirements and make recommendations pertaining to energy conservation strategies, but allow the AE the flexibility to determine how the LEED Gold certification is obtained.
Require all new construction to be LEED Silver certified by FY10:
LEED Silver certification has been required for all new campus buidings since 2008, when the iCAP was signed. Thee are four levels of LEED certification: certified, silver, gold, and platinum. Silver certification requires a mimum of 50 LEED points. The Ikenberry Commons Student Dining and Residential Programs (SDRP) building and the phase A of the new residence halls in Ikenberry Commons is also LEED Silver certified. This designation is required for all buildings that were planned or begun before 2010. While many of the buildings planned at that time are completed or in construction, there are some future buildings planned before 2010, which will only be required to meet LEED Silver status.
Require all new construction to be LEED Gold certified by FY11:
With the successful attainment of LEED Silver certification for some campus buildings, the Campus advanced the LEED certification requirements to a minimum of Gold certification at the beginning of fiscal year 2011. All projects which began the planning process after May 2010 are required to be LEED Gold certified. To acheive LEED Gold, the construction or renovation project must qualify for a minimum of 60 LEED points.
Wassaja Hall became the campus’ 11th facility to receive LEED® certification from the U.S. Green Building Council in February. The University of Illinois is a national leader in green building design with more than 2.4M GSF on campus.
On the agenda at the ECBS SWATeam meeting:
1) Follow up from April 14 Illini Lights Out;
2) Reports from success of Eco-Olympics;
3) Continued discussions on Karl’s work with ACES and other buildings;
4) Energy efficiency standard for UIUC;
5) Dr. Ximing Cai, new Associate Director for Campus Sustainability came to meet the team;
6) SWATeam next meeting time and date: May 11th, from 3:30 to 5 pm.
On the agenda at the ECBS SWATeam meeting:
1) Report from Karl on projects he has been working on:
a) Enterprise Works - proposed revolving loan project. Awaiting departmental funding of $350K to complete project.
b) Memorial Stadium RCx work - This appears to be getting $500K in funding.
c) National Soybean Research space walk preview.
2) Discussion on LEED requirements as iCAP goal
3) BIF lighting follow up
4) Final planning for ILO on Friday, April 14
5) Updates:
a) Eco-Olympics
b) Recommendation for ILO continuation submitted by Marian
c) Green Labs Coordinator position
6) SWATeam next meeting time and date: April 27th, from 3:30 to 5 pm.
The LEED transportation credit for encouraging low emission vehicles can be obtained if there are dedicated spaces for low-emission vehicles near the building in question. In general, the University is not adding new parking spaces for new buildings, so it is difficult to achieve this LEED point. One method is to add a Zipcar space for the building, and another is to add an Electric Vehicle charging station. Grant Colella, a Project Manager at F&S, suggested a long-term plan to change all of the campus fleet to low emission vehicles, so the dedicated service vehicle spaces would also be low emission vehicle spaces.
Bousfield Hall LEED® Certified: Bousfield Hall, which opened in Fall 2013, became the third university facility to achieve LEED Platinum status, the U.S. Green Building Council’s highest certification level, joining the Business Instructional Facility and Lincoln Hall.
This multidisciplinary immersion course which utilizes the built environment to educate and prepare students to become green building leaders. In the course students assess the performance of existing facilities on campus and chose one building where they will facilitate the LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance (LEED EB:O&M) process with the goal of certifying the facility. At the close of the semester the students are prepared to sit for the LEED EB:O&M professional credential exam. To learn more visit LEED Lab. Under “How” the Welcome Packet and LEED Lab Timing Chart are available for download. To express interest please complete this form.
The LEED Lab Timing Chart is organized in such a way to help with sequencing of the coursework. Faculty can choose to start with campus credits first before focusing on an individual building or go straight to the building level credits.
The LEED v4 O&M Candidate Handbook can be found here. Pages 12-14 outline the job tasks of a LEED AP and what type of information GBCI will be testing. Information in the candidate handbook could be used to establish student learning outcomes for the course.
Jaime Van Mourik
Director, Higher Education
U.S. Green Building Council
The rennovation of the State Farm Center (previously known as the Assembly Hall) will seek LEED Gold certification. One item that this includes is the prerequisite that the building have indoor recycling bins placed throughout the facility. This will be a nice follow up to the first Zero Waste Game Day event our campus held in Spring 2014.
The Natural History Building renovation will include LEED certification. Preliminary intentions for this effort are shown in the attached document.
