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Projects Updates for Water Audit / Inventory

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  1. Land & Water iCAP Meeting 2/17

    On February 17th, the Land & Water iCAP team met to discuss the details of a permeable pavers recommendation. The team then split off into breakout rooms to organize future soil and water committee initiatives. 

    Meeting minutes are attached.

    Attached Files: 
  2. Final Update

    Associated Project(s): 

    Good Evening All,

    There was a short hiatus of meetings as the semester was coming to an end due to conflict of schedules but we were able to meet today. Even though we did not meet I was still finishing and touching up the items we planned last meeting. I was able to finalize the water audit program and it is attached. I then came up with some water sustainability goals the University of Illinois should pursue. Lastly I was able to water a page on why water scarcity is an important issue that we as a university should took more interest in even though it may seem we have no issues here. The Mahomet aquifer is the body of water most of central Illinois uses and each area has a limit of usage before it starts depleting. Once it starts to...Expand »

  3. Week 10 Update

    Associated Project(s): 

    Good Afternoon All,

    This week’s meeting was productive and we were able to set up the excel spreadsheets needed to record data on the chiller plants, Abbott, and potable water. Over the past week I researched and created a checklist and table for conducting a water audit. The checklist will be shared here after some final corrections are made to it. I was able to determine what was needed and where stamped flow volumes are marked on each fixture. If there is no stamp on faucets there is a simple tool called a flow rate bag that will be purchased so auditors can determine the flow manually. As for urinals and lavatories the model and serial number will be recorded to search the model manually and figure out the flow rate. There is no hand...Expand »

  4. Week 7-9 Update

    Associated Project(s): 

    Good afternoon all,

    This week’s meeting was short but was necessary to update Morgan on the progress made over the past three weeks and to determine the next steps to be taken. To catch everyone up I have attached all of my findings for information on the chilled water loops. A quick summary of what I discovered is that the vet med chiller plant is on a separate loop because of how far it is from other campus buildings. In its loop it has 5 different buildings it provides chilled water to. The other 6 chiller plants are all connected in the main chilled water loop. The loop consists of about 115 different campus buildings and they can be seen in the document. The buildings found in this loop were found by sorting the utilities billing...Expand »

  5. Week 6 Update

    Associated Project(s): 

    Good afternoon all,

    This week’s meeting went well and we were able to discover more information on the low-flow water fixtures installed in some of the university buildings. I was also able to update the excel sheet, to the correct display for when we get data. At the beginning of the meeting, I was able to catch the group up on the information I read in the Master Utilities Plan and Combined Heat and Power (CHP) convention. The CHP convention had very general information on CHP generation and some specifics in areas we are not interested in. There was not much information on how water consumption is monitored or improving.

    The Master Utilities Plan was very informative on how Abbot Power Plant and the Chiller plants work. It&...Expand »

  6. Week 4 & 5 Update

    Associated Project(s): 

    Good afternoon all,

    There was no week 4 update because of some time conflicts which lead to the cancelation of the meeting. This week proceeded normally and we recapped what happened for week 4 and continued progress forward on determining what data is needed for the chiller plants to determine their efficiencies and line losses. To keep everyone up to date last week I was able to email three different combined heat and power plants, they were in London, Helsinki, and Copenhagen. They either did not get back to me or told me to review what is on their site because no further information can be released. After reviewing all of their sites, I was still not able to find more information on water consumption of CHPs or how it is monitored. I...Expand »

  7. Week 3 Update

    Associated Project(s): 

    Good morning,

    Week 3’s meeting was a very informative and productive with the help of Mike, who is the director of budgeting and resource planning for the energy services division. Mike was able to help confirm and teach us about what is exactly happening at the chiller plants. He caught us up to date on what is being metered and where to find certain information. Together we brainstormed ideas on how we can determine a metric to measure the water consumption of each chiller plant. This included the metered water going into the cooling tower, water going into the chiller loop, and comparing that number to the total chilled water produced. Alongside this comparison the BTUs will also be monitored to see how much energy is being used to...Expand »

  8. Week 2 Update

    Associated Project(s): 

    Good morning all,

    Austin here and yesterday’s meeting with Morgan White and Sarthak Prasad went well. I reviewed articles on how power plants use freshwater and the ways to reduce their consumption. The biggest factor in water use at power plants is their cooling system. The metric for measuring this is gallon per KWh and it’s categorized by their withdrawal, consumption, and discharge. The different types of cooling systems have their own pros and cons. For example wet recirculating cooling is good because it doesn’t withdrawal a lot of water but it consumes more than the other methods. Then an example of an advanced cooling system is a hybrid system that used air and a cooling tower to combine the advantages of a cooling tower and...Expand »

  9. Week 1 Update

    Associated Project(s): 

    Good evening everyone,

    My name is Austin Jung and I am a senior in chemical engineering with a minor in the iSEE Fellows Program. I will be helping Morgan White and Sarthak Prasad with the 2015 iCAP objective #5.3 water audits for my SEE Fellow’s senior capstone. After the first successful meeting, the following will be addressed through the semester:

    • Create a water audit program/process for an existing building that will be the basis for the campus wide water audit.
    • Quantify and reduce the distribution and line losses for steam by measuring the steam/condensate loss. Then compare this to the national and peer averages.
    • Develop a list of buildings that have and need to have their water fixtures upgraded.
    • Find out a metric to measure
    • ...Expand »
  10. Water and Stormwater SWATeam Meeting 2/6/2018

    Meeting topics included potential for the team to move forward with a water audit of campus buildings, ways that nitrogen runoff could be monitored, and incentives the Parking Department would have in following through with adding green infrastructure to parking projects.

    Attached Files: 
  11. Water & ALUFS SWATeam Joint Meeting

    Each team shared ideas of the semester and came together to propose a few joint recommendations. Suggested logistics for a water audit were mentioned, as well as nitrate runoff data from the 1990s that would be used as benchmark levels for runoff reduction. Different possible measuring techniques regarding future progress in nitrate reduction were mentioned. Ideas for greener parking lots were introduced, including replanting of trees on Lot E14.

  12. Meeting 27 September

    Topics of discussion included the planned water audit and parking lots that could be used for studies related to stormwater runoff. A student in the Sustainability minor planned to work with Rabin Bhattarai on the audit. The EPA Rainworks Project would have potential to redesign Parking Lot F4 because Burnsides Laboratory will be torn down.

  13. Water & Stormwater SWAT Meeting Minutes 3/30/2017

    Updates and discussion of greywater meter, greywater design standards, cooling tower cycles of concentration, water use dashboard, and student outreach.