Brigham Young University
OP-5: Building Energy Efficiency

From 2016 to 2019, BYU transitioned from a heating plant powered by coal to a cogeneration facility powered by natural gas. The baseline year, 2015, is the last full year of operation of the heating plant.

Temperature setpoint standards have been created for all campus classrooms, offices, conference rooms, general work spaces, labs, lobbies, hallways, other public spaces, and critical spaces. Since 2021, BYU has scheduled heating and cooling controls in a dozen buildings. In partnership with Bernhard, it has also perfomed energy analysis (investment-grade energy audits with several years of monitor-based comissioning) and implemented turn-key energy improvement projects for six buildings occupying nearly 1.4 million square feet. Another three buildings occupying 0.5 million square feet are in progress or in planning.

Buildings at BYU are designed to be energy-efficient. Indoors and out, nearly all inefficient lighting on campus have been upgraded to LEDs and T8 fluorescents. In many buildings, occupancy sensors turn off lighting fixtures automatically when they are no longer in use. Finally, larger windows that allow more natural light help reduce the demand for indoor lighting. 

BYU's co-generation plant uses a combustion process to produce electricity and captures the resulting heat. While the electricity is delivered to Provo Power, the heat is used to condition large portions of the BYU campus with no additional emissions. This heat is not captured in the total campus energy calculations as it is not always fully used due to electricity generation requirements and can be considered a by-product of the electricity generation process.

The Utah Municipal Power Agency, which provides Provo with power, counts on BYU's co-gen plant for its clean power-supply goals. Its 2022 Integrated Resource Plan reports, "In recent years, UMPA has added more renewable hydroelectric generation from the Olmsted project, the Sixmile hydro project and additional CRSP allocation, more solar energy from two projects – Clover Creek in Mona and the community solar project in Spanish Fork, and finally the energy from the BYU Cogeneration facility. These renewable efforts by UMPA are reducing on dependance on coal and reducing our carbon footprint. UMPA’s largest member, Provo City, has adopted a goal of achieving 60% renewable and clean power-supply by 2030.2 UMPA is committed to work towards this and other goals for the reduction of greenhouse gasses, cleaner air along the Wasatch front and sustainable efforts by the public."

BYU is reducing its energy consumption through improved building envelope technology, which reduces air flow through traditional energy loss spots (between roofs and walls) by adding an additional specialized membrane over the building insulation. This helps keep conditioned air inside the building and keeps out the unconditioned outside air. It has been estimated that building heating ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems accounted for approximately 30% of total energy consumption in the United States.

BYU is also improving its building automation systems across campus. A re-commissioning process was piloted at the Office of Information Technology Building and deployed on a larger scale at the Life Sciences Building. In two years, natural gas consumption fell by 50 percent and electrical cooling consumption by 30 percent. The lessons learned from this process are currently being replicated across campus. BYU has acquired infrared technology that allows technicians to produce photographs showing the details of building heat loss during the winter and cooling loss during the summer. This information is guiding efforts to make BYU's buildings as energy-efficient as possible.

Physical Facilities is working to significantly reduce energy consumption in 15 major campus buildings. Its crews have installed variable speed drives on all fans and pumps, replaced incandescent lights with fluorescent lights, replaced many office light switches with motion sensors, begun optimizing chiller sequencing to reduce energy consumption, upgraded roof insulation and retrofit many campus buildings with low-E reflective glass.

From 2016 to 2019, BYU transitioned its heating plant to a cogeneration facility that is contracted by the Utah Municipal Power Agency to generate electricity around the clock. This has reduced BYU's imported electricity.