The University of Michigan's Planet Blue Operations Team's was recently designation as "Sustainable Program of the Year" by DTE Energy. This means that its energy conservation programs compare favorably not only with those at universities nationwide, but also with those at major corporations.
In winning this award, U-M is keeping company with past honorees like General Motors, The Kroger Company, Detroit Diesel Corp., and American Axle.
Terry Alexander, director of
U-M's Office of Campus Sustainability, surmises that U-M may be one of the largest non-industry users of electricity in southeast Michigan. "We've got about 34 million square feet of buildings that we operate, and that's a lot of energy use."
Consider also a student population in excess of 40,000, about 30,000 faculty and staff members, plus tens of thousands of visitors to the U-M Health System and other campus facilities daily, and "you're probably looking at a daily population load of close to 100,000 people around here."
The Planet Blue teams make passes through university properties, identifying energy efficiency and resource conservation measures. Past projects include the consolidation of computer server rooms to cut down on cooling costs and chilled water recirculation systems in laboratories.
Alexander credits the award to the team approach of looking at not just the buildings, but working with their occupants to implement recommendations. He also touches on the longevity of U-M's sustainability efforts. The Planet Blue program has been in place for three years, "but in reality, this is just kind of the evolution of what we started a couple of decades ago when we started with our Energy Star programs and building retrofitting and fine-tuning the systems," Alexander says.
The results? A 14-percent reduction in energy consumption and savings of $5.2 million in utility costs for 67 buildings through year-end 2010. The goal is to sweep 120 buildings by June 30, 2012.
Over and above that, Alexander projects: "We have several hundred buildings on campus...and if we push beyond 120 or we go back and look at more buildings we've already done, either way I think we can exceed that 14%."
Source: Terry Alexander, director of the University of Michigan Office of Campus SustainabilityWriter: Tanya Muzumdar
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