Demand Management, Energy Efficiency, Utilities  -  July 21, 2017

BYU-Idaho wins energy conservation award

Brigham Young University-Idaho was recently awarded the 2017 wattsmart Business Idaho Partner of the Year for its energy efficiency efforts and saving more than 1.24 million kWh in the last year.

The award, granted by Rocky Mountain Power, recognized the university for reducing energy equivalent to the energy used by 140 homes in a year, according to a news release.

“Working together we can pass that savings on to students and be good stewards of the resources that we share,” Kyle Williams, BYU-Idaho Facilities Management operations director, said in a statement. “Together we can make a difference at the university, in the community, and the environment through cooperative planning and efficient use of our resources.”

While BYU-Idaho has been in a partnership with the Western-region utility, a division of PacifiCorp, it has completed 18 energy savings projects on campus, resulting in $87,000 in energy cost savings.

The wattsmart Business award is the result of energy efficiency projects BYU-Idaho has initiated in recent years. Its energy conservation program includes the construction of new buildings with variable speed drives for HVAC system motors, the use of ethylene propylene diene monomer (EPDM) roof material and occupancy sensor lighting controls. It has also updated its insulation materials, such as instituting thermally improved aluminum frames and insulated glazing with low-e film.

The university has also completed a number of retrofit programs to improve the efficiency of buildings already on its campus, such as the installation of occupancy sensors to control lighting in most existing buildings. A chiller plant renovation reconfigured pumping systems and resequenced operations, which resulted in 980,320 annual kWh, approximately $56,859, in savings per year going forward.

Rocky Mountain Power provided the university $144,175 in incentives for LED lighting, heating and cooling and roofing upgrades. An LED lighting retrofit program on exit signs on campus alone is estimated to result in energy savings of $613 per year.

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