Hello 2020 researchers! 

After winning 1st place internationally in 2018 and 2019, lab researchers who use cold-storage at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are encouraged to register in the 2020 International Laboratory Freezer Challenge to save energy and help the campus win for a third-straight year.

Sign up HERE!

Campus efforts in more than 70 laboratories across 15 buildings earned Illinois the award last year. The total energy usage in these spaces decreased by an estimated 438 kWh/day or a combined annual total equivalent of 13.5 homes energy for one year.

Worldwide recognition

The University of Illinois research community has received international recognition from a number of organizations and media publications:

• Lab Manager Magazine, Cold Storage March 2019 Published article with participants quoted for expert advice here

• Nature Magazine feature published in Oct. 2018 and Sept. 2019 edition 

• S-Labs highlights our achievements in their short-listed profiles here 

• iSEE and Facilities & Services published news releases U of I Wins Freezer Challenge 

Labs that use ultra-ultra low temperature freezers (-150C), ultra-low temperature freezers (-80C), lab freezers (-40C to -20C), refrigerators, or cold rooms can earn points by taking action now.

For more details on how your lab can save cooling energy, visit freezerchallenge.org. 

The Freezer Challenge takes place between December 2019 and May 2020. Individual labs self-report and estimate their energy saving on score sheets. These sheets are made available via email upon registration and are due by May 1, 2020.

Reductions were achieved due to the dedication and creativity of researchers across campus in implementing best practices for cold storage management. They received points for taking actions such as properly maintaining freezers and refrigerators, discarding old samples, and retiring unneeded units.

Campus-specific highlights from the 2018 competition and 2019 competition are available on the Illinois Freezer Challenge website. 

In 2019, over 400 labs representing 41 organizations around the world competed, and Illinois was named one of three organizational winners by saving 160,000 kWh/year. The Ming Lab in the Department of Plant Biology, managed by Julie Nguyen, was named an honorable mention winner in the individual lab category.

The International Institute for Sustainable Laboratories (I2SL) and My Green Labs run the Freezer Challenge. Participants have already saved over 8.5 million kWh since 2017, approximately enough to offset the carbon emissions associated with driving over 15 million miles.

Past winners were announced at the I2SL conference and their accomplishments published in Nature. 

For more information on the Illinois campus achievements and competition, check out our Illinois-specific website: https://freezerchallengeui.wixsite.com/freezerchallenge

Join us and submit your scoresheet by midnight on May 1st to achieve world-class results!

For help getting started contact:

Madeline Barone @ mbarone2@illinois.edu

Madeline E. Barone, B.S.

Environmental Sustainability and Psychology

Energy Efficiency & Conservation Specialist | UIUC Facilities & Services

Co-Director | Eco-Olympics

https://www.linkedin.com/in/madelinebarone/

Good morning Morgan,

I have gathered the numbers that correspond to an acre of solar cover. 

The estimate is that an acre of solar canopy could generate 760,536 kWh annually (this estimate takes into account the weather patterns of our location and possible shading/system inefficiencies).  

I remember you saying that right now the University pays $0.05 per kWh.  Our solar farms are charged $0.045 per kWh that they generate.  This means that $0.005 is saved for every kWh generated.  That can be used to estimate that an acre of solar canopy would save roughly $3,800 per year.  

I thought that I would also include the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s estimate for what a solar retailer would charge per kWh of electricity in our area: $0.036.  This would mean that $0.014 could be saved per kWh on a solar canopy system, or roughly $10,650 per acre.  

Let me know what else I can find,

Ryan Day

Abby Culloton, a freshman in Civil and Environmental Engineering, put together a project proposal for the SmartWay program and presented it on February 28th. This proposal included why being an affiliate of this program would be beneficial to campus, who/ what departments across campus would be involved, proposed objectives, and other facts that needed to be considered. 

Attached is the full proposal.

East Central Illinois Master Naturalists just formed a Pollinator Taskforce. They are focused on getting more pollinator plants into the community and planning programs associated with pollinators and pollinator plants.

The Extension team created some wonderful handouts that have native plant suggestions for 5 types of habitat. We have been handing those out like crazy. PDFs can be found at (https://extension.illinois.edu/cfiv/pollinator-pockets).

We have the pollinator pocket program (see link above)

Educational Programs held (just ECIMN, does not include programs organized by master gardener programs):

March 18, 2019 – Making Pollinator Habitat Work on the Modern Landscape

May 16, 2019 – Wildflowers

July 15, 2019 – Champaign Prairie Areas

July 22, 2019 – Buzz on Native Bees

August 19, 2019 – Illinois Monarch Project

January 27, 2020 – Native Plants in the Landscape

They just had a table at the Mudpuppy festival and had information on pollinators for children

The Master Gardener program in Vermilion County is mostly organic (unless something crazy happens). The Master Gardeners in Champaign put in a native pollinator garden last year at the IDEA garden on campus.

In the training for MG and MN we talk about pollinators, native plants, and pest management.

I am on the team that did the Retrocommissioning project in 2018 and I would be happy to share some of our knowledge from that process.  Below is the link to a presentation of that project that we took to a Big Ten energy conference.   Some of our main takeaways are that the combination of chilled beams, dual HX wheels, coil sizing, occupancy ventilation, and thoughtful building pressurization have led to one of the most efficient buildings on campus.  Also, the heat pumps work well to heat/cool with electricity, but would be optimal if there were more of a reheat load, or a hot water loop to send reject heat to a neighboring building in summer, which campus is looking into in certain locations. 

https://www.fs.illinois.edu/services/utilities-energy/energy-conservation/rcx-energy-results

https://webtest2.fs.illinois.edu/docs/default-source/retro/big10-friends-mechanical-energy-conference-2018-09-30.pdf?sfvrsn=7a85cbea_2

Andy Robinson, LEED-AP, CEM

DDC Specialist, F&S Energy Services - RCx

The Chancellor at Washington University in St. Louis invited President Killeen to have the University of Illinois participate in the Midwest Climate Summit in fall 2020.

Hello everyone,

I am happy to report that our Dump and Run site visit last Wednesday was successful! We will be using the Truck Bay at F&S for this year’s collection space, thanks to Dr. Attalla, Dave Boehm, and Pete Varney.  The address is 1501 S. Oak Street, and Mike Doyle and Marc Alexander said it will serve the collection space needs very well.  Additionally, the Zero Waste Coordinator at F&S, Shantanu Pai, will take on an active role for Dump and Run this year. 

Our vision is to transition Dump and Run from a “YMCA-run event that campus helps” to a “campus-run event that the YMCA helps.”  Certainly this will take time (more than one year) and there are many details to work out, so please remember that the collaboration for this overall program will only be strengthened by this shift. Shantanu, Marc, and I are meeting this Wednesday, and we will provide a more detailed status update at the next team meeting on March 10. 

If you have any questions or suggestions in the meantime, please let me know. Thanks again for all the thought and consideration that this group has put in to this program and finding workable solutions.  I’m very excited for the future of Dump and Run!

Sincerely,

Morgan

The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded a $3.3 million grant to a multidis- ciplinary research team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to develop a precise system for measuring greenhouse gas emissions from commercial bioenergy crops grown in central Illinois. 

The three-year project through the Insti- tute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environ- ment (iSEE) is expected to reduce emissions associated with ethanol and other biofuels by enabling new technology for managing bioenergy crops, improving yield, reducing overfertilization, and designing new tools for “smart farms.” The vast data collected will be publicly available and could someday lead to financial rewards for farmers who reduce emissions through sustainable crop management. To read full article go to: https://sustainability.illinois.edu/doe-project-will-measure-bioenergy-crop-carbon-emissions/