Best Practice Awards
The 2010 Best Practice Awards Competition for the Energy Efficiency Partnership Program
seeks to:
- Highlight the achievements that the California State University, University of California, and California Community College campuses have made through innovative and effective energy efficiency projects and sustainable operations.
- Showcase specific projects and retrofits as models to be used by other campuses to achieve energy efficiency and sustainability goals.
- Provide campus staff with a valuable resource of Best Practice projects that they can transfer to their own campus.
We are pleased to announce the 2010 Award Winners:
Descriptions of 2010 Best Practice Award Winners and Honorable Mentions
Lighting Design and Retrofit
Copper Mountain College – Comprehensive Lighting Retrofit
Interior and exterior fixtures were upgraded throughout the Copper Mountain College facilities as part of a comprehensive lighting, mechanical, and IT energy efficiency initiative. Significant savings were achieved by employing high efficiency lamp and ballast combinations and occupancy based controls. Safety and efficiency in exterior areas were improved by replacing high pressure sodium fixtures with high efficiency fluorescent systems. All exterior lighting was also integrated into the campus energy management system (EMS) in order to improve monitoring and controls as well as increase the reliability of energy savings by eliminating mechanical time clocks.
San Jose State University – Martin Luther King Jr. Library Lighting Upgrade
San Jose State University facilities staff worked with library staff, lighting design professionals, and contractors to upgrade lighting systems throughout the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library, improving energy efficiency, lighting quality, and safety in the building. The design team researched scotopically enhanced light sources, occupancy controls for book stacks, and high performance fixture retrofits by engaging lighting professionals as well as other universities with similar installations. Energy savings exceeded expectations in many areas, and newly installed lamps will result in reduced maintenance costs.
UC San Diego – Sustainability Resource Center Lighting Project
The UC San Diego Sustainability Resource Center (SRC) is a collaborative facility open to faculty, staff, and campus partners to advance common goals in campus environmental, social, and economic stewardship and sustainability. The project was a strategic partnership between campus staff, students, and industry partners. The SRC retrofit focused on a Direct Current – Direct Current (DC-DC) lighting system that integrated generation side (solar panels) and device side (lighting controls and LED task lighting) components as well as daylighting and photoluminescent exit lighting.
(Honorable Mention) Cal Poly San Luis Obispo – Student Recreation Center Lighting Expansion/Remodel
The lighting portion of the expansion and remodel of the Student Recreation Center at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo included the integration of occupancy-based controls, daylight harvesting, low wattage lamps, and dark-sky-compliant LED exterior lighting. This combination helped the overall facility’s energy performance reach 24.7% below Title 24 requirements. Multiple campus stakeholders were involved in the design review process and a Cal Poly San Luis Obispo senior level architectural class and ASHRAE club are assisting with LEED documentation for this facility.
Sustainable Foodservice
Humboldt State University – Dining Services
HSU Dining Services offers local products year-round, and during the local growing season 50%-100% of produce served in the dining hall is sourced from small farms in the immediate community. HSU Dining Services works closely with Community Alliance with Family Farmers to create and maintain a symbiotic relationship with local small farms. HSU Dining services provides information on nutrition and local food options on its website, through extensive signs and labels throughout each location, and maintains a bulletin board in the main dining hall highlighting local farms. Though this outreach, HSU Dining Services is able to gain student interest and garner support for continuing to improve sustainable practices. To reduce energy consumption, HSU Dining Services has replaced all incandescent light bulbs in the dining hall with compact fluorescents, and has installed motion-sensitive LED lights in refrigeration units.
UC Santa Barbara – Dining Services
In addition to purchasing increasing quantities of local and organic produce, starting a composting program, and initiating conservation programs focused on energy, water and waste, UCSB’s Dining Services stands out because of its external outreach and staff training. “Peer Expert” teams educate all staff and customers about sustainable practices. These efforts are supported by a “Marketing Team” that publicizes the campus’s sustainable food program. Going beyond the campus, a Community Sustainable Foods Group (CSFG) includes representatives from campus administration and faculty, local farmers and agriculture groups, student groups, other colleges and businesses in the Santa Barbara region.
Student Sustainability Programs
Santa Rosa Junior College – Students for Sustainable Communities
Students for Sustainable Communities (SSC) have created a primarily self-supported waste education and reduction program that augments an already under-staffed facilities department and uses students as peer educators on issues of sustainability. In addition to impressive collaborative steps taken to green the operations of the Dining Commons, students have also worked the foodservice contractor, Fresh and Natural, recommending greener products and practices such as washable silverware. SSC has recruited students from academic programs who are using their lab hours to participate in the above activities, thereby providing a great model for not only sustainable practices, but also for the integration of Student Activities and Academic Affairs.
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo – Green Campus Program
The Green Campus Program has implemented a variety of successful energy and water conservation projects and programs, made improvements to campus events and procedures, and initiated widespread behavior change through enhanced awareness among faculty, staff, and students. Designed to impact all students, the Green Campus Program infuses sustainability into new student orientation and educational programs for on-campus residents. As part of a new initiative, Green Campus is offering Green Certification of campus offices and departments in a program intended to recognize department efforts to conserve energy and water, improve recycling, and reduce environmental impacts. This program has received support from the Vice President of Administration and Finance, and all departments within the division are expected to participate.
UC Santa Barbara – Program for the Assessment and Certification for the Environment and Sustainability (PACES)
Students in the Program for Assessment and Certification for the Environment and Sustainability (PACES) have worked with departmental Management Services Officers to assess, improve and document sustainable practices in 14 departments across the UCSB campus. Survey results are used to draft a Sustainable Purchasing Policy and a Climate and Sustainability Action Plan for each department. Additionally, PACES drafts documentation required for LEED-EBOM certification. Upon the completion of both plans, the department receives a certification of recognition as a PACES Green Certified department and will be eligible for a Green Department Award to be given out during Staff Appreciation Week.
Overall Sustainable Design
DeAnza College – Mediated Learning Center
The DeAnza College Mediated Learning Center is an ambitious project envisioned as a center of innovation that will advance the college’s digital media program. The project includes classroom space, a television studio, a student lounge, and office space for several campus departments. The building is organized around a two-story atrium that contributes significantly and innovatively to its HVAC operation, and has photovoltaic panels on flat roof surfaces. These features will contribute to an anticipated LEED-NC Platinum certification. By embracing energy efficiency as a guiding design principal, The Mediated Learning Center is anticipated to consume 71% less energy than the national average for college and university building types.
California State University Sacramento – American River Courtyard
The American River Courtyard project provides housing and associated services to over 600 students at CSU Sacramento, increasing student housing by 50% and greatly contributing to the University’s goal of transitioning from a commuter campus to a residential campus. Occupied in 2009, the project anticipates LEED Gold certification. The design of the American River Courtyard exceeds Title 24 energy provisions by 35% and data from the first year of operation substantiates these calculations. In addition to high efficiency lighting and HVAC equipment, the project also has dedicated chutes for recyclable materials, water efficiency low-flow fixtures, and ENERGY STAR appliances. Student and Housing Department staff members participated in the project’s design and were integral to its success.
University of California Irvine – Medical Education Building
The UC Irvine Medical Education Building is a highly innovative response to the demands of today’s medical education. Through an integrated design process, the project team decided to divide the Medical Education Building into two zones, one for instruction, the other for offices, meeting rooms, and other non-technical purposes. The instructional portion of the building is mechanically heated and cooled, while the non-instructional portion of the building takes advantage of Irvine’s mild climate and relies on natural ventilation; the two sections of the building are connected by a pedestrian breezeway. This innovative design strategy allowed the project team to exceed Title 24 energy provisions by 28% and provide an additional 23% of usable space within the original program budget. The Medical Education Building anticipates a LEED Gold certification.
(Honorable Mention) West Los Angeles College – Athletics and Allied Health
The West Los Angeles College Athletics and Allied Health project team employed a holistic and integrated approach to create a truly sustainable design solution. The project includes a food court, gymnasium, fitness center, weight room, swimming pool, and athletic fields. Passive design strategies, such as building orientation and shading, allow the project to minimize mechanical cooling requirements and maximize day lighting. The design includes a 350 kW photo voltaic array on the buildings roof, to offset peak demand. This project is targeting a LEED Platinum certification and the design exceeds Title 24 energy provisions by over 40%.
(Honorable Mention) California State University San Bernardino – College of Education
The California State University San Bernardino College of Education demonstrates the benefit of an integrated design in meeting the programmatic needs of faculty and students while planning for long-term operational efficiency. Located at the base of the San Bernardino Mountains, the project features five acres of desert-appropriate landscaping, minimizing irrigation requirements. Building orientation, exterior shading, and narrow ribbon windows at desk height maximize day lighting and occupant views, while minimizing solar heat gain. At the request of Facilities staff, the three air handling units were located inside the building, providing an unobstructed roof service for future photovoltaic arrays and minimizing the required duct work.
(Honorable Mention) University of California San Diego – Health Sciences Biomedical RF2
The UC San Diego Health Sciences Biomedical Research Facility 2 was designed around a goal of providing maximum daylight and views to lab occupants, while minimizing glare and solar heat gain. To accomplish this objective, the design team conducted extensive research on various systems before settling on a combination of fixed shades, dynamic exterior shades, glazing, and interior shades. The shades work in concert with specially designed lab ceilings and daylight sensors that dim interior lights when natural light is available. The project team has incorporated sensors into the design that will enable the campus to track lighting conditions over time and evaluate the performance of this new system. Water efficiency is also a priority for this project. In an effort to eliminate the use of potable water for irrigation, the surrounding landscape will be watered with a blend of condensate from air handling units and concentrate reject from reverse osmosis equipment.
Monitoring-based Commissioning (MBCx)
UC Berkeley – Le Conte Hall
Of the MBCx projects completed in 2009, UC Berkeley’s Le Conte Hall project stands out for its emphasis on using monitoring to identify savings opportunities, efforts to implement savings accounting through pre-and post-monitoring, focus on strategies to achieve persistence of savings including staff training, and identification of retrofit opportunities in the course of the MBCx process. Implemented changes include new control sequences for pumps, new scheduling, new air filtration and repair of a valve leak. The measured annual energy savings in this building were 348,000 kWh and 11,000 therms of gas. The $170,000 project had a net simple payback of 1.6 years after utility incentives. Total energy savings in the building were 21%.
HVAC Design and Retrofit
Los Angeles Pierce College – Net-Zero Maintenance and Operations Complex and the Horticultural Center & Animal Sciences Facility
The Near Net-Zero Maintenance and Operations Complex and the Horticultural Center & Animal Sciences Facility generate much of their own energy through photovoltaic and solar thermal arrays. The solar thermal power can be used to heat the buildings in the winter and to cool them in the summer through the use of a hot water fired absorption chiller. Hot water storage tanks allow the heat to be collected when it is available and to be used when it is needed. Dimming LEDs light the buildings. hese advanced systems are tied to the rest of the campus through an Enterprise Energy Management System to monitor and control the system, and share performance information with the rest of the community.
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo – Student Recreation Expansion/Remodel
The Student Recreation Expansion and Remodel was funded by a student fee initiative to add over 95,000 gross square feet to the existing facility. The referendum mandated LEED certification and student review of all stages of the design process, which has resulted in many energy efficient features. The mechanical system utilizes indirect/direct evaporative cooling to significantly offset the need for mechanical air conditioning. An innovative heat pipe heat recovery loop allows the efficient dehumidification of air in high-density areas. Solar thermal collectors are used to heat the swimming pool. A LEED Silver certification is anticipated.
UC Irvine – Exhaust Stack Discharge Velocity Reduction
Laboratory exhaust systems typically use exhaust stacks with a constant high velocity to ensure proper plume dispersion of possible contaminants above the building. The exhaust fans typically induce additional air into the exhaust plume if there is not adequate flow from hoods to maintain the exit velocity. UC Irvine evaluated the performance of exhaust fans at four buildings using wind tunnel testing to determine the minimum exhaust velocities for safe operation. These exhaust systems were modified through this innovative project with VFDs, pressure controls, and, in two cases, stack extensions to significantly lower the power needed to safely exhaust any possible contamination.
Student Energy Efficiency
West Los Angeles College – Green Campus Program
The West Los Angeles College Green Campus Program initiated a wide-reaching educational campaign to engage student, faculty, and staff in an effort to conserve energy and water at home and on campus. Through this effort, interns have developed mock energy bills to display campus energy consumption and energy cost data. This information is being displayed on two large banners in high-traffic areas on campus. Interns have also posted 500 stickers on light switches to encourage people to turn off unused lights. Lastly, interns have posted 100 fliers in campus lavatories; each flier contains tips on how to conserve water and energy. The West LA College Green Campus Program is the first California Community College winner in this category.
Cal Poly Pomona – Green Campus Program
In partnership with campus staff, Green Campus interns at Cal Poly Pomona conducted numerous interior and exterior lighting audits. Using the findings of these audits, interns successfully lobbied for a series of retrofits and operations changes that are saving the campus close to $100,000 per year in energy costs. For example, after analyzing light levels and hours of operation in the campus’s new 750,000 square foot parking garage, interns convinced staff in Parking and Transportation to remove unnecessary lamps and greatly reduce lighting levels during nighttime, weekend, and holiday hours. In addition to their work on campus lighting, interns also created an educational video documenting energy and water conservation best practices, and held multiple energy conservation competitions in student housing.
UC Santa Cruz – Green Campus Program
Interns in the UC Santa Cruz Green Campus Program partnered with staff in Campus Dining to implement energy and water conservation programs in dining halls and kitchens. To promote conservation in campus kitchens, interns created a bi-lingual training DVD that explains how to save energy and water during food preparation and storage. Interns distributed these DVDs to each kitchen on campus and the program has been incorporated into regular staff trainings. Interns conduct walk-through inspections of campus kitchens twice per quarter to ensure that conservation practices are being implemented. Green Campus Interns also implemented a “dining by daylight” program in campus dining halls. Through this project, interns collected light level readings in a variety of weather conditions during daylight hours in dining areas on campus. Interns used this data to convince staff in Campus Dining and in Environment, Health and Safety to eliminate or reduce artificial light levels in dining areas during daylight hours.
Water Efficiency/Site Water Quality
San Diego Community College District (SDCCD) – Standardization of Calsense Irrigation Control System
Based on the successful results of a pilot study, the San Diego Community College District has adopted the weather-based Calsense irrigation system as the design standard for all future campus projects. The Calsense irrigation system adjusts irrigation levels based on rainfall and evapotranspiration rates, and is able to detect leaks. Using a $50,000 grant from the San Diego County Water Authority, the SDCCD installed a Calsense irrigation system on the Mesa College baseball fields – an area with historically high water consumption. Grounds crew and Facilities staff monitored the system’s performance over the course of a year and found that it was able to maintain the baseball fields while using 20% less water than conventional methods. Based on this result, the SDCCD Trustees approved the system as the standard for all new construction projects.
CSU Northridge – Weather Based Irrigation Control System & Waterless Urinal Retrofit
CSU Northridge is reducing its water consumptions through a large-scale waterless urinal retrofit program and the installation of a computer-controlled irrigation system. To date, the campus has replaced 265 inefficient urinals with chemical-free waterless urinals, reducing annual water consumption by almost 11 million gallons. CSU Northridge has also installed a new computer-controlled irrigation system, which automatically adjusts watering times based on rainfall levels and evapotranspiration rates, as measured by on-campus weather stations. The new system provides irrigation for all of the campus’s 256 acres and will reduce annual water consumption by an estimated 82 million gallons. Both the urinal replacement project and the irrigation system retrofit were made possible by large grants from the LA Department of Water and Power, which covered more than 93% of the projects’ combined cost.
UC San Diego – Clean Water Utility Initiative
UC San Diego’s Clean Water Utility Initiative (CWUI) addresses water efficiency and conservation through a variety of strategies, including lab equipment replacement, irrigations system retrofits, operations changes, aggressive campus standards for new building fixtures, and water conservation education. For example, UC San Diego replaced 46 coolant units serving laboratory autoclaves; these upgrades will save the campus an estimated 16.87 million gallons of potable water per year. Through CWUI, UC San Diego faculty and staff also developed a six-week water seminar, which allowed participating students to study recycled water, water reuse, and storm water management issues by using the campus as living laboratory. Finally, UC San Diego students and staff developed a comprehensive water conservation campaign called AQUAholics Anonymous.TM This campaign featured a water conservation competition in student housing, an art competition, an online pledge program, and film screenings as part of a campus-wide “Water Awareness Month.”
UC Santa Barbara – San Clemente Ecological Restoration & Stormwater Management Project
Rather than expand conventional stormwater infrastructure to manage runoff associated with its San Clemente Graduate Housing development, UC Santa Barbara created a seven-acre series of bioswales and wetlands to filter stormwater and reduce the risk of flooding. To implement this project, staff partnered with students and faculty in the Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration. Faculty and students helped design the project to maximize biological diversity and will continue to collect and analyze date to study its long-term performance.
Innovative Waste Reduction
UC San Diego – “Toby’s Spot” Reuse Program
Through the Toby’s Spot program, UC San Diego residents who eat at campus dining halls can take their food to-go using reusable plates, bowls, glasses and silverware. Students return their dishes and flatware to one of several Toby’s Spot drop-off sites, located throughout Housing neighborhoods. This program cuts waste by reducing the need for disposable dishes, cups, and utensils. Organized by Housing, Dining and Hospitality, Toby’s Spot is a low-cost, highly replicable program that achieves significant results. Over the programs’ first six months, UC San Diego Housing reduced its waste by about 47 tons compared to a baseline period.
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