Energy & Utilities
Student Environmental Initiative Facilities Fee
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In June of 2005, the University of Tennessee Board of Trustees approved an addition to the Facilities Fee with the additional funds earmarked for environmental initiatives. Following is a description of how the first year’s funding is planned to be used: Green Power Purchase In future years, these projects may be continued, or other projects may be considered. If you have other ideas for energy and environmental improvement projects please let us know at: energyinfo@utk.edu.
Green Power Purchase - $144,000 per year is earmarked for the purchase of green power from the TVA Green Power Switch program. This increases the university’s green power purchase from 375 blocks to 3,375 blocks, or 6,075,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. This amount is approximately 2.5% of our annual electrical usage which has enabled us to become on EPA Green Power Partner. This purchase is equivalent to planting over 1,000 acres of trees, or recycling more than 700,000 pounds of aluminum per year. This amount of green power also offsets approximately 6,000 tons of emissions per year from production of this same quantity of electricity from fossil fuels. High Efficiency Lighting Fixtures - $16,000 will be used to replace old inefficient lighting fixtures in McCord Hall. Another $4,000 will be used for a small program in residence halls where students will be allowed to swap incandescent bulbs for compact fluorescent bulbs. Lighting Motion Sensors - $5,000 will be used to replace wall mounted light switches with combination motion and ultrasonic detector switches to turn lighting off when not in use. Steam Valve Controls - $13,000 is allocated to replace controls for buildings with steam radiators. Steam control to these buildings is currently by old outside air sensors in each building that tell the steam valves when to open and close. The controls will be upgraded and connected to the campus energy management system to also allow centralized control. Low Flow
Plumbing Fixtures - $20,000 will be used to replace older plumbing
fixtures with fixtures that require less water.
Old toilets can use 5 gallons or more per flush, newer ones use 1.6
gallons per flush. Older
urinals use 3 or more gallons per flush, and newer ones use 0.8 gallons
per flush. The University is
also experimenting with waterless urinals which need no water.
Lavatory faucets use in excess of 1 gallon per minute, newer ones
will use 0.5 gallons per minute, and be automatically controlled to lessen
the likelihood of faucets being left open.
This year’s improvements will be made in Claxton Addition, Boiler Firing Controls - $8,000. These funds are for improving the firing controls on heating water boilers used for building heating. In older controls, on the first sensing of the temperature falling below set point, the boiler firing sequence starts, starting usage of natural gas. Sometimes this is of short duration and heats the system up without need when the temperature sensor is only seeing a small cool “slug” of the water being circulated. These controls will introduce a time delay in the firing sequence that will ensure the boiler needs to start before actually starting to burn gas. This is expected to result in a 10% to 20% savings in natural gas on these boilers. Hybrid Vehicle Purchase - $12,000 is allocated to provide the difference in funding between a standard vehicle and a hybrid vehicle. This funding will be used for as many vehicles as can be purchased for this difference, for applicable vehicles that are scheduled for replacement this coming year. Energy Efficient Electric Motors - $20,000 to be used to replace older less efficient electric motors. Older motors can be 80% efficient, or less, where newer motors have efficiencies of 92% and higher, depending on the sizes. This project will also look at applications where older motors are oversized for their respective load, and replace those motors will smaller horsepower motors more aptly sized for the load. Hand Dryer Pilot Project - $8,000 will be used to evaluate savings of paper goods versus electrical costs when using electric hand dryers in lieu of paper towels. If you have questions or concerns
about energy issues on campus |