Colorado College
OP-8: Building Energy Consumption

Colorado College employs the following temperature standards: -During heating season occupied hours, the target building temperature is 71 degrees for academic, administrative and residential areas. -During heating season unoccupied hours, the target building temperature is 65 degrees for academic, administrative and residential areas. -During cooling season occupied hours, the target building temperature is 76 degrees for academic, administrative and residential areas. -During evenings, weekends and holidays, the temperature will default to unoccupied settings. Holidays include Thanksgiving & Winter Breaks. -Research facilities and labs requiring specific setpoints are exempt from this policy and will be managed on a case by case basis by Facilities Services. Exemption requests can be submitted via the Work Order Request form online. -Spaces scheduled for special events through the campus reservation system will be programmed as occupied. -Standard occupied hours for academic and administrative spaces are 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. -Standard occupied hours for residential areas are continuous, except during holidays.

Colorado College has installed both interior and exterior LED lighting technology in many areas across campus, which include the following: the walkway lighting for Packard Hall, the walkway lighting for the Tiger Trail steps to Stewart Field, the walkway pole lighting for Cutler walkway to Cascade, the walkway pole lighting at the intersection south of Tutt Library, the exterior door lighting north side of Cossitt Hall, and the interior main hallway lighting Cossitt Hallway. The entire interior and exterior of the Spencer Center, which was undergoing renovations until August of 2014, is now lit by LED's. CC has newly installed LED lights in the Honnen Ice Arena and Schlessman Pool.

Colorado College employs various occupancy sensor applications to manage occupancy and/or vacancy sensors. There are currently motion sensors that facilitate lighting in Barnes Science Center, Tutt Science Center, the Mathias Residence Hall bathrooms, and the Palmer Hall classrooms and bathrooms. Recently, the College integrated motion and thermal sensing to adjust air changes in campus laboratories.

CC does not employ passive solar heating.

CC does not employ ground-source heat pumps.

CC does not employ cogeneration technologies.

The college employs an Campus Energy Manager who holds a professional engineer license and who is certified through the Association of Energy Engineers as a Certified Building Commissioning Professional. The Campus Energy Manager performs ongoing building recommissioning throughout the campus. He also performs commissioning on the new and renovation projects.

The college uses utility metering to capture total energy use. It then uses its building automation systems to capture energy use at a building level using electrical and thermal metering at the building level. The building automation system records electrical use on 15 minute intervals and thermal use by hour. CC uses the building automation system to schedule equipment in its buildings. CC has invested considerably to add individual energy meters to all buildings and energy intensive areas previously served by multi-building utility master meters, or by the central plant distribution systems for cooling and heating. CC also monitors and trends the energy usage in order to identify any excessive usage in order to make corrections or adjustments in operating and maintenance systems.

Colorado College employs many efforts to replace energy-consuming appliances, equipment, and systems with high efficiency alternatives. For example, during the remodel of the Worner Center in 2010, the college replaced the dishwasher for the main dining hall with the highest efficiency model available. The replacement has led to a 70% saving on energy and water over the previously existing dishwasher. Beginning in 2012, as part of its Managed Print Initiative, the Information Technology Department scaled down the number of printing, faxing, scanning,and copying devices on campus and installed a smaller number of highly-efficient, multi-user printers. By cutting back the number of devices on campus from 449 to 145, the college estimates that the project has resulted in a 50% energy saving, or 255,626 kWh/year. In another effort to cut back on electricity use, the Information Technology Department over the last four years has consolidated many of the servers on campus into four large, energy efficient devices known as VM clusters, which are capable of hosting over eighty servers a piece. This initiative has cut down the number of servers on campus from over one hundred down to forty.

Occupancy Monitoring for Computer Labs The Information Technology Department has installed Verismic software, a technology that manages the sleep and power off settings of computers in all computer labs on campus. The department's DIrector of User Services estimates that the installation has reduced 70% of the electricity used on lab computers. Spencer Center High Performance Building Design The Campus Energy Manager has been very involved in the design of the Spencer Center Renovation to ensure the buildings energy performance aligns with CC’s sustainability goals. Some highlights of the buildings high performance design are an R‐27 envelope assembly, variable refrigerant flow water source heat pump system, LED lighting, and an interconnected PV system. For example, the LED lighting system will operate at 0.3W/SF while the minimum code requirement is 1.0 W/SF. Barnes Fume Hood Project This year Facilities Services has been working on a project to update 27 year old fume hoods with air flow monitoring to insure proper airflow for differing sash positions. To improve energy performance in Barnes CC is replacing the pneumatic controls on the supply air and room exhaust with direct digital controls (DDC). These new controls will allow CC to apply more sophisticated logic to each lab and reduce air changes during unoccupied times. The system will also allow the College to operate the room exhaust and fume hood exhaust as a coordinated system to insure proper lab ventilation. Worner Solar Thermal The Worner Solar Thermal Project is the first application of solar thermal hot water collectors on campus. The project is going to use solar hot water to preheat/heat domestic hot water serving Worner Center. The system is intended to study the feasibility of meeting campus wide domestic water demands during the summer. Favorable system performance and operation could allow for shut down of high temperature hot water generation at the central plant during the summer. Net‐Zero Synergy House The Synergy house at 1018 N. Weber is the location of the College's first net‐zero building. This project is designed to give students a prototype to study and discuss as the College move closer to carbon neutrality. The project has already added electric water and space heating to the house. In addition a state of the art web based thermostat has been added allowing students to monitor and manage the house remotely. A PV system will be added in the spring. Packard Auditorium HVAC Controls Upgrade The HVAC system serving the Packard Auditorium utilized outdated pneumatic controls and operated 24/7. This project replaces those controls with new DDC controls. The new controls will enable CC to schedule equipment operation for the space. One feature added to the new controls is demand control ventilation. The use of new sensors enables CC to maintain excellent indoor air quality and save energy. Armstrong Auditorium CO2 Sensor This project adds demand control ventilation to Armstrong’s auditorium. Demand control ventilation uses CO2 sensors to measure the amount of CO2 in the space and modulate the outside air damper to maintain optimal air quality levels. It saved energy by reducing the amount of outside air the system is required to condition when air quality is good.