Purchase Order approved
Purchase request to procure a pair of Eco-Counter bicycle and pedestrian counter has been approved. PO# P2196145.
Purchase request to procure a pair of Eco-Counter bicycle and pedestrian counter has been approved. PO# P2196145.
On August 3, 2021, the SSC submitted a semesterly report concerning the Precious Plastic Campus Recycling Hub, which is attached here.
On 6/8/2021, the Student Sustainability Committee released a semesterly report on the Bicycle Registration and RFID Tracking Program. The report is attached.
A 24" by 36" Bee Campus USA sign will be installed at the corner of Florida Avenue and Orchard Street, by the Florida-Orchard prairie, near Orchard Downs and the Presidents’ House.
The sign includes information about Bee Campus USA, local pollinators, the creation of the prairie zone, and more!
See the attached file to view a digital rendition of the signage.
On June 11, 2021 a semesterly report was submitted to the SSC for the Eco-Olympics project reporting that the event could not happen this year due to the pandemic.
On June 7, 2021, Illini EV has completed significant car design work, but they are delayed in receiving funding.
This funding allowed for the removal of outdated fixtures, upgraded lighting fixtures to LED, and decreased the per fixture energy consumption while increasing the overall light levels to an acceptable workspace benefiting the University users.
Please see attached the final bicycle registration sign design in JPEG and PDF formats. We have received approvals from Housing to put up these signs in the major high traffic bicycle parking locations, mainly in the SDRP, LAR, FAR/PAR, and Busey Evans bicycle parking areas. We are also looking at Illini Union and ARC for these signs in this cycle, but dependent on funding.
Sarthak Prasad has submitted a work order to fabricate and install the bike registration signs at these locations (as mentioned in previous project updates). The Work Order number is 10885468.
On August 2, 2021, SSC approved the scope change for the Bike and Ped Counters project as requested on July 21, 2021. Sarthak Prasad will make a purchase request to procure a new set of Eco-Counter bicycle and pedestrian counters.
See the project update for Scope Change requested: Bike and Ped Counters.
Sarthak Prasad requested a scope change for the Bicycle Registration and RFID Tracking Program project on July 23, 2021. This scope change request includes changes to the following:
Please see attached the scope change document from 2020 as well as 2021.
The SSC approved $9,500 in funding for this project at Illinois in Spring 2020. This project expires 5/14/2022.
The SSC approved $10,000 in funding for Hydrologic at Illinois in Spring 2020. This project expires 5/14/2022.
The SSC approved $10,000 in funding for this project at Illinois in Spring 2020. This project expires 5/14/2022.
The SSC approved $700 in funding for this project at Illinois in Fall 2020. This project expires 12/16/2022.
The SSC approved $3,520 in funding for this project at Illinois in Fall 2020. This project expires 12/16/2022.
The SSC approved $4,840 in funding for Biodesign at Illinois in Fall 2020. This project expires 12/16/2022.
F&S submitted the Spring 2021 Semesterly Report to the SSC for the Eco-Olympics project!
Read the report in the attached files below.
The News-Gazette printed this story about the geothermal at the Campus Instructional Facility: https://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/university-illinois/renewable-en...
"URBANA — The University of Illinois’ glossy new building at Springfield Avenue and Wright Street represents the next step in its sustainability goals.
The four-story, 122,000- square-foot, $75 million Campus Instructional Facility is also the biggest geothermal installation on the UI campus.
Its geothermal system can pump 135 tons of hot or cool air into the building. That’s twice as much as the next biggest geothermal system on campus, and about 30 times the amount pumped into an average home.
“The whole world knows about solar and wind power and things like that — hydroelectric power, too — but that’s only the electric side of energy. Energy also includes heating and cooling,” said Morgan White, director of sustainability at UI Facilities & Services. “It’s truly transformative, because it’s moving into the phase of getting us clean thermal energy and not just clean electricity.”
Electricity provides heating and cooling as well, she said, but it’s primarily provided by natural gas, propane and other nonrenewable sources of energy.
The key to the geothermal endeavor? Forty boreholes dug into the Bardeen Quad next to Grainger Library. They’re 20 feet apart, 6 inches wide and drilled 450 feet deep.
Initially, the project required 60 boreholes, but UI researchers reduced that figure — and made the system financially feasible — by checking the thermal conductivity of different rock and soil layers, or the rate that heat passes through them, while considering the depth and flow rate of groundwater.
To keep the building temperate year-round, a mixture of water and glycol circulates from a heat pump in the mechanical room into a pipe that runs up and down the underground field of boreholes.
In winter, the pump pulls heat from the ground into the building. In summer, heat is pumped from the building back into the ground.
“It’s like when you have a bathtub that’s a little too hot or a little too cold, and you pour some water in and stir it up,” White said.
In all, the system reduces the building’s energy consumption by 65 percent compared to a typical heating/cooling installation, saving about $45,000 per year.
Student initiatives helped fund the state-of-the-art thermal system. The 18-member Student Sustainability Committee, funded by the annual “Green Fee” assessed on students, allocated $375,000 — or about 13 percent of the system’s cost — to the facility’s geothermal installation.
The building has a number of other unique features. It contains two dozen new classrooms — one of the highest figures on campus — replete with active-learning and distance-learning spaces. In the fall, engineering courses will occupy most of the space, along with math, statistics and other technical classes.
The facility is also the first UI building funded through a public-private partnership, which allows for tax-exempt financing.
Meanwhile, faculty and graduate students will use temperature information from a 385-foot-deep monitoring well, funded by Facilities & Services and the Institute for Sustainability, Energy and Environment, for continued research opportunities.
As part of the Illinois Climate Action Plan, the university plans to get to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Currently, around 12 percent of electricity is provided by renewable sources, like the solar and wind farms near campus, White said. But only 4.5 percent of the UI’s total energy use, counting thermal, comes from renewable sources.
“Clean electricity is important, but it’s not enough,” White said.
In the planning stages, the UI wasn’t supposed to start implementing geothermal systems until 2035, but a suggestion by Yu-Feng Forrest Lin of the Prairie Research Institute jump-started that process."
A 24" by 36" blank sign was installed at the corner of Florida Avenue and Orchard Street, by the Florida-Orchard prairie, near Orchard Downs and the Presidents’ House. The information planned to be featured in the sign will originate from the new Bee Campus brochure. This text will highlight the Bee Campus student organization, information about pollinators, as well as university and campus initiatives to be more pollinator-friendly. Thanks to funding by SSC, the signage will be ready for public display by the end of 2021!
See the attached files to view the installation of the blank sign!
As a part of the terms of the funding agreement for Meadow at Orchard Downs Low Mow Zones, the Student Sustainability Committee released a semesterly report with key information about the project on June 14, 2021. The report can be viewed below.