University College Cork - National University of Ireland, Cork
OP-5: Building Energy Efficiency

Under our national reporting obligations we have chosen 2006-2008 as the baseline period. We will use 2008 for the STARS application

UCC’s energy management program, which is certified to ISO 50001, can be broken down into a 3-pronged approach that focusses on our plant operations, our processes in place to manage energy conservation and finally our people, who play a leading role in our energy conservation approach.
Plant:
Plant (or equipment) encompasses the services that we use in all our buildings, for example lighting, air ventilation, heating equipment and associated pumps. From our learnings over the years it is estimated that these services would account for 50% of the Universities energy consumption and as such need to be closely managed. We achieve this through our building management systems which ensures that the equipment is only running when it is required while the engineering services department ensure that the plant is maintained to ensure efficient operation when running.

Process:

Using our ISO 50001 certified energy management system, the University ensures that the process are in place to manage and promote energy conservation. For example, our energy policy ensures that our significant energy users are closely managed to eliminate energy wastage while our energy audit process ensures that regular energy audits are undertaken where energy saving opportunities are identified and undertaken by our minor projects department. Finally, our design processes ensure that all future buildings or renovation programs have sustainably and energy efficiency as a key design deliverable.

People:

Most important are our people who use or manage the energy consuming equipment on site. From our craft operators, lab technicians, IT services departments to our students each and every one of us have a big part to play in reducing our total energy consumption. It is the aim of the B&E office to engage, encourage and enable our staff and students to conserve energy when they can, whether that’s turning off lights and PC’s when leaving the rooms or switching off lab equipment and services when not in use.
Using the 3P approach described the office is currently focussing on our significant energy users, where any energy efficiency measures implemented, can have a positive impact on our annual energy consumption.

Through our extensive BEMS and monitoring package we are constantly reviewing time schedules and setpoints to suit the time of year and occupation loading. Some of the operating strategies include:
Use of CO2 control on HVAC systems
Weather compensation on boiler systems.
Presence detection for lighting controls.
Weekly energy scorecards produced and communicated to our SEU's.

Over the last 10 years we have seen a significant change out of lighting systems from CFL's / T12 fittings to T5 and more recently LED fittings.
We have a rolling campaign underway to replace all lighting with LED units. Areas are selected based on the age, condition and energy consumption of the existing lighting infrastructure.
Some of the control strategies include:
Presence / Absence detection.
Daylight dimming.
Closing of areas during low occupancy rates and opening as required.
Time schedules.
Corridoors / stairwell dimming.

We have a number of technologies rolled out across the University including:
Heat pump operation using local river bed to provide heating / cooling to Glucksman Gallery.
Heat pump operation using local river to provide heating to IT building.
Heat pump operation using local aquifer to provide heating to the ERI building.
Extensive amount of heat recovery from process equipment / data centres / lab spaces.
A number of solar arrays for heating of domestic hot water.
Naturally ventilated buildings.
Use of glazing on south facing buildings to maximise daylight / solar gain.

From 2001 to Oct 2017 we have used CHP units to provide on average 5.5 GWh of electricity a year to the main campus while using the waste heat to provide 20% of the Main Campus heating requirements. These units are are no longer in operation.

We are constantly running tailored energy efficiency programs across the University. Our programs focus on understanding the behavioural aspects and needs of the building users. Once these are understood we run campaigns around improving the operation of the buildings to make it a more comfortable and pleasant space for the user while also improving the energy efficiency. The majority of changes focus firstly on managing efficiently existing assets within the building, i.e. ensure equipment runs only when it needs to. Once we have the units running at optimum levels we identify alternative equipment that would be more energy efficient than the existing units, based on the running hours. If viable this equipment would then be replaced with a more efficient alternative.