University of Alberta
OP-5: Building Energy Consumption

The baseline was adopted because it aligns with our Greenhouse Gas reduction goal and it also aligned with the Canadian Federal Government's baseline at the time that our goal was set. The University of Alberta recognizes that water, energy, and greenhouse gas emissions are intrinsically linked and that the consumption of energy drives our greenhouse gas production. The UAlberta GHG inventory follows the Operational Control approach to define its organizational boundary. Operational Control is defined as having full authority to introduce and implement the university’s operating policies. As a result, Enterprise Square, Alberta Health Services run properties, Canadian Blood Services and the Jubilee Auditorium are not included in our inventory because UAlberta does not have operational control of these buildings.

Earth Hour is a global event organized by WWF (World Wildlife Fund). It is held each year on the last Saturday of March. Earth Hour asks households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights and other electrical appliances for one hour to raise awareness about the need to take action on climate change. The university's celebration of Earth Hour includes a variety of competitions and programs supporting this global movement. Examples of the outreach programming for Earth Hour 2017 are outlined below. ONE HOUR, NO POWER: CAMPUS CHALLENGE Building on a successful pledge competition since Earth Hour 2010, a call for participation was sent province-wide to broaden the reach of this event. Students, staff and faculty at all participating institutions were encouraged to visit a common website and make their pledge to participate in Earth Hour 2017. The school with the largest number of pledges (proportional to school population) will win the competition, and individual participants will be entered to win prizes supplied by their own institution. DARKEST TOWER CHALLENGE Lister Residence, the university's largest residence complex, houses nearly 1,600 students in four towers. In collaboration with Residence Services, the Office of Sustainability held a competition within the Lister Residence that encouraged residents to reduce their electricity consumption. GREEN SPACES The Green Spaces certification program is a way to help the university's campus community integrate sustainable practices into their work and living spaces. Participants can earn a bronze, silver, or gold certification for their office space, lab, event or living space. Green Spaces has many categories that participants are evaluated on, and one is reduction of energy use.

Lighting occupancy sensors and photo-cells are being installed across campus in areas where lights would not normally be shut off without user intervention. Examples of areas that would require occupancy sensors would be mechanical/electrical rooms, janitor closets, storage rooms, washrooms, larger public areas and medium or large classrooms and labs. Photo-cells are installed in areas that have enough exposure to daylight that lights can be turned off and the area still maintains safe and comfortable working conditions. There are also areas where lights cannot be turned off due to safety (i.e. stairwells, emergency exits, elevator shafts, elevators, etc.). The university uses its direct digital control and building automation systems to centrally monitor and control the central systems in individual buildings, schedule the operation of systems, and provide space temperature setbacks. An example of temperature setbacks in practice is in the Health Research Innovation Centre buildings; during unoccupied hours, space temperatures are allowed to rise during warm weather conditions and dip under cool weather conditions. Another example is the Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Sciences, where lighting control occupancy sensors shut down zone lighting and ventilation equipment for individual offices and areas, and space temperatures are allowed to deviate off set point whenever individual spaces are unoccupied. Monthly and annual utility readings are coordinated through utilities and finance services; they are used to track all facility utility performance. These readings are also used to compare current building performance to previous years to track changes to a facility’s utility performance. In the future, the university's building operations will utilize an Enterprise Energy Information Monitoring System to further increase the efficiency of university building systems.

The university is introducing high-efficiency LED lighting on campus through our Energy Management Program. As of the time of this report, LED lighting has been installed in lighting applications in the Students’ Union Building, Stadium Parkade, Southfield Parkade and the Lister Centre parking lot on North Campus. Five more retrofit projects are being designed. In addition, LED street lights and pathway lights are installed at Augustana Campus, and the new Jeanne and Peter Lougheed Performing Arts Centre is one of the first theatres in North America to use exclusively LED stage lighting. The building's interior and exterior lighting also uses LED.

Solar Thermal Projects - Completed - Augustana Forum: 13 kW solar thermal installation - Physical Activity and Wellness (PAW) Centre: 133 kW solar thermal installation Solar Thermal Projects - In Progress - Augustana system expansion: 10 kW solar thermal expansion planned

The university's District Energy System (DES) centralizes production of heating, cooling and electricity, rather than generating this on a building-by-building basis and transporting electricity from far away. This reduces the maintenance, transportation, and distribution costs associated with energy production. The DES provides energy security for the university and is also a revenue-generating utility that produces about 25 to 30 per cent of the electricity used on campus and 100 per cent of campus heating and cooling needs. The university's DES services over 100 buildings on 304 acres of land (approximately 330 Canadian football fields). It is one of the largest DES in North America. The University of Alberta's DES: - Uses STG-1, a cogeneration technology generator with a 13 MW steam turbine generator that was installed in 1994. Because power generation is directly related to heating load, peak power production occurs during the winter months, when it is needed most. - Has a 26.4 MW condensing steam turbine generator, which was installed in 2000. This generator operates independently of the heating load. - Is fueled by natural gas, which creates fewer greenhouse gas emissions than coal. - Has boilers that are fitted with combustion controls to reduce emissions.. - Operations span across multiple buildings, including a heating plant, two cooling plants, a thermal energy storage system, two electrical switching stations, 10 km of service corridors, and an extensive metering system.

Across the university's campuses, there are a number of programs in place to facilitate transition to high-efficiency equipment, appliances and systems: - Fume hood replacements: The university is actively replacing aged constant volume 100 fpm face velocity fume hoods with new hoods that operate at 60 fpm and have variable volume settings that allow for the flow to go very low when the sash is closed. - Fan replacements: All fan systems that have motors over 100 Hp with fan arrays are in the process of being replaced. As a result, maintenance costs are decreased, single point failure is reduced, and building power use is reduced. - Motor replacements: All motors that need to be replaced are being fitted with high-efficiency motors. - Heat reclamation: Implementation of heat recovery for all buildings that have research plug loads. A closed loop water system is circulated to provide cooling for lab equipment and reject the heat into the building air systems as preheat. - Lab Freezer Rebate Program – The university works with an external partner to examine the feasibility of offering an ultra-low temperature (ULT) freezer rebate program as an incentive for purchases of energy-efficient ULT units. Efficiency of ULT units is important because they are some of the biggest consumers of energy in laboratories and are estimated to consume as much energy as a single-family household in Alberta each year. Through a feasibility study, it was found that if UAlberta were to swap out 10–15 old ULT freezers at the end of their usable lives with 10 new, energy-efficient models, the institution could save 50–83 tonnes of CO2 emissions, 95,000-157,000 kWh per year, and $12,000–$21,000 in electricity costs. - Vending machines - There are eight snack machines on campus operated by Edmonton Coin Vending that have motion detection technology; three are located in the Edmonton Clinic Health Academy, three are in the Saville Centre, and both the Education Building and the Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Science have one machine each. The lights are turned off one hour after they were last used.

ADDITIONAL RESPONSIBLE PARTIES NORTH CAMPUS James Allen Associate Vice-President Operations & Maintenance Monica Chahal Program Lead Office of Sustainability Kurt Borth Special Projects Planner Office of Sustainability Jason Yuzyk Utilities Utilities Data Analyst AUGUSTANA CAMPUS Chris Blades Facilities Manager Facilities & Operations