The kickoff meeting for the ISTC geothermal study was led by Todd Rusk at ISTC on March 9, 2009. The agenda was 1) to discuss the overall project objectives, tasks, and requirements and 2) to begin preparations for drilling the test wells.
Participants included: Tom Abram, Eliana Brown, Kenneth Hlinka, Thomas Holm, Michael Jeffords, David Larson, Tim Lindsey, Kent Reifsteck, Bill Shilts, Douglas Walker, and Angela Wisehart.
A total of 5,507 lighting fixtures in the Beckman Institute were changed from T-12 fixtures to T-8 fixtures as part of the ICECF Lighting Retrofit. This will allow an Annual kWh Savings of 857,210 hours. The Simple Payback for changing the fixtures in the Beckman Institute is 2.79 years.
In late January 2009, students wrote a letter to the Governor, Pat Quinn, requesting him for support and assistance in the campus wind farm project. This letter addressed the need of wind generation capacity on campus and requesting the governor to persuade the Chancellor to bring the wind power to the campus.
In January 2009, the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC) and Students for Environmental Concerns (SECS) wrote letters to the university administration (trustees, Chancellor and Provost’s offices, deans and assistant deans, department heads, faculty and senate faculty) asking for support for the campus wind farm project.
A total of 740 lighting fixtures in Altgeld Hall were changed from T-12 fixtures to T-8 fixtures as part of the ICECF Lighting Retrofit. This will allow an Annual kWh Savings of 123,985 hours. The Simple Payback for changing the fixtures in Altgeld Hall is zero years, since the Classroom Renovation Project funded this work. Occupancy sensors were also installed in the lighting retrofit of this building in order to provide further energy savings.
A total of 2,539 lighting fixtures in the Law Building were changed from T-12 fixtures to T-8 fixtures as part of the ICECF Lighting Retrofit. This will allow an Annual kWh Savings of 421,882 hours. The Simple Payback for changing the fixtures in the Law Building is 3.07 years.
The Student Sustainability Committee funded a the Green Roof Metrics Class Project, which will support class projects to assess the impact on sustainability of the green roof on the new Business Instructional Facility. Students in Professor Werth's Hazardous Waste Management course in Spring 2009 and Sustainable Urban Engineering course in Fall 2009 will make measurements of the filtration and thermal properties of the green roof. Hopefully, these projects will also help establish the roof as a laboratory for future student and faculty research projects on this topic. The SSC gave $13,100 in funding.
Student Sustainable Committee (SSC) commits to an additional $200,000 that raises the total student contribution to $500,000.
The first Retro-Commissioning (RCx) team was created in August of 2007. Due to their significant success in saving energy, a second team was started in January of 2009.
Following the cancellation of the wind turbine project on South farms, the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC) and Students for Environmental Concerns (SECS) wrote a complaint letter to the Chancellor Richard Herman. SSC and SECS expressed their disappointment about the decision as well as the timing of the decision. They were also upset because the university didn't discuss or consult with the student stakeholders in this decision.
Following cancellation of the wind project, the students were angry about autocratic and secretive behaviour of the university administration regarding cancellation. They were disheartened and upset with the timing of the decision because the decision came during the finals week when the students were pre-occupied and under stress with exams. Students felt that university's choice of cancelling the project during the finals week was to avoid any response or protest from the students.
However, following the finals week, students protested the decision of cancelling the wind turbine project.
News Bureau of Illinois published an article regarding the problems associated with wind-farm project: "Answers to huge wind-farm problems are blowin' in the wind" -- http://news.illinois.edu/NEWS/08/1215windfarm.html
In December 2008, the wind turbine project on South farms was unilaterally cancelled by the university Chancellor Richard Herman, when he cancelled the purchase of one 1.5 MW wind turbine from GE Wind Energy citing "dismal fiscal condition" of the university.
A total of 531 lighting fixtures in the Advanced Computation Building were changed from T-12 fixtures to T-8 fixtures as part of the ICECF Lighting Retrofit. This will allow an Annual kWh Savings of 84,092 hours. The Simple Payback for changing the fixtures in the Advanced Computation Building is 2.95 years.
A total of 314 lighting fixtures in the Child Development Laboratory were changed from T-12 fixtures to T-8 fixtures as part of the ICECF Lighting Retrofit. This will allow an Annual kWh Savings of 50,497 hours. The Simple Payback for changing the fixtures in the Child Development Laboratory is 3.49 years.
In December 2008, Facilities and Services published a fact sheet for the wind turbine project.
Daily Illini published an article about wind turbine proposal: "Sustainability Committee struggles to pass wind turbine proposal" -- http://dailyillini.com/news/2008/10/23/sustainability-committee-struggle...
A total of 3,799 lighting fixtures in the National Soybean Research Center were changed from T-12 fixtures to T-8 fixtures as part of the ICECF Lighting Retrofit. This will allow an Annual kWh Savings of 597,686 hours. The Simple Payback for changing the fixtures in the Turner Student Services Building is 1.89 years.
The lighting fixtures in the Psychology Building were changed from T-12 fixtures to T-8 fixtures as part of the ICECF Lighting Retrofit. In this facility, 2,571 fixtures were changed. This will allow an Annual kWh Savings of 393,534 hours. The L.S. project seperately funded 1,812 of the 2,571 fixtures. Occupancy sensors were also installed in the lighting retrofit of this building in order to provide further energy savings.
The 1,481 lighting fixtures in the National Soybean Research Center were changed from T-12 fixtures to T-8 fixtures as part of the ICECF Lighting Retrofit. This will allow an Annual kWh Savings of 248,885 hours. The Simple Payback for changing the fixtures in the National Soybean Research Center is 1.28 years.
