on campus
Two shades of green
Sustainability upgrades are delivering on promised cost savings, too. By Dallas Bastian
Universities are spending millions on building upgrades in a bid to cut carbon emissions and save money. RMIT University’ s Sustainable Urban Precincts Project is the largest of its kind in the southern hemisphere. It will involve the upgrade of 90 buildings across three campuses, with the aim of cutting energy and water use.
The $ 98 million sustainability project is expected to lead to a 30,000-tonne reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. The project will also involve the upgrade of 26,000 light fittings.
Honeywell Building Solutions – which is involved in 40 energy- and watersaving projects across 34 buildings on the university’ s Bundoora and Brunswick campuses – developed a cost assessment from an investigation of RMIT’ s energy and water usage.
John Boothroyd, Honeywell’ s Asia- Pacific energy and sustainability leader, says,“ This looked at the operational costs of existing plants and equipment, taking into account the current efficiencies and comparing these with current commercialised and developing technologies.”
Through the assessment, Honeywell identified that emissions could be reduced by 50 per cent. Boothroyd says a key component of the company’ s participation involves installation of a tri-generation plant, which uses waste heat from electricity production to heat and cool buildings.
The group will also make improvements to central plants, chillers and pumps, carry out lighting upgrades, improve boiler efficiencies and install water catchment recycling.
Honeywell will be using its building management system, Enterprise Buildings Integrator( EBI) to help identify opportunities for utility savings and comfort improvements.
“ EBI will combine the diverse facility and building systems at RMIT into a single, security-enhanced platform for strategic control and optimised performance of the university’ s resources,” Boothroyd says.“ The benefits of this will include improved operational and energy efficiency, as well as cost savings.”
Centralising monitoring, control and reporting across the campuses allows for a complete view of all aspects of the facilities, he adds.“[ This ] will help simplify everyday tasks and allow for greater insight and control [ with ] the functioning and efficiencies of the system,” he says.“ EBI will provide real-time visibility into facility operations and trend analysis that will help optimise energy management strategies.”
RMIT and Honeywell planned to involve the university’ s students from the outset.
“ We’ ve looked at how this project can be integrated into their university experience and studies,” Boothroyd says. Honeywell will install interactive dashboards linked to the EBI throughout the campus to give both staff and students real-time information on its energy performance. It will also develop learning modules for undergraduate and postgraduate students in the engineering and property faculties.
“ We’ ve also designed the tri-generation project so a PhD student can work alongside Honeywell staff, gaining hands-on experience of an innovative solution to energy management,” Boothroyd says.
The group has worked with other higher education providers, both internationally and domestically. One such project involved the installation of a biomass renewable energy plant at Eastern Illinois University in the US, which Boothroyd says cuts the university’ s energy use in half.
Other schools are making upgrades as well. The University of Queensland says it is saving 2 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions daily. The university recently replaced all lighting in three buildings on its St Lucia campus with energy-efficient LEDs. The university states that the change reduces energy consumption by 84 per cent, which equates to $ 100,000 in annual energy costs. The project will also cut greenhouse gas emissions by 750 tonnes each year.
Property and facilities division deputy director Geoff Dennis says the project reduces UQ’ s carbon footprint and lowers operating costs in terms of electricity consumption and future maintenance.
“ LEDs have a much longer life span, so lighting maintenance will need to be performed less frequently,” he says.
Chris Collins, property and facilities division energy manager, says security is increased because LEDs enhance the performance of the building’ s CCTV cameras.
Dennis says the success of the project across all indicators makes the case for similar future investment. ■
28 | campusreview. com. au