The Illini Union is undertaking a significant HVAC upgrades to the North Building Lower Level in its Phase I Infrastructure project and to the North Building Floors 1 – 4 in the Phase II Infrastructure project.  While both of these projects address major deficiencies in the existing heating and cooling system infrastructure, a significant gap in HVAC backbone will still exist once these two projects are complete.  The kitchens in the Lower level, both the main kitchen and vendor kitchens have constant volume exhaust fans/hoods.  This creates a strong negative air flown in the building, particularly in the Lower Level.  The Northwest stairwell acts as a conveyor of the conditioned air on the upper floors as it migrates to the basement and out the hood exhaust stacks. 

The goal of this project is to replace kitchen hoods and convert associated exhaust fans to DDC control and add Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) controllers to fan motors.  This will modulate the hood exhaust flow based on cooling demand.  This will reduce the average kitchen exhaust demand by 50%, or approximately 20,000 cfm. This would generate estimated annual energy cost savings of $62,600, with a straight line payback of 2.4 years, and save the Union about 5% of its total energy consumption.