In the fall term, The News published the first installment of a three-part series that explores Choate’s pledge to be environmentally responsible. The first article examined aspects of sustainable building design, focusing on the new $22 million dormitory, scheduled to be completed in the summer of 2008. In this second article, The News investigates the school’s energy consumption and the effectiveness of its conservation efforts. How Green is Choate? –The Editors
On January 25th, the Board of Trustees convened with members from the Student Life Committee to discuss various aspects of campus life. According to Dean of Students John Ford and an individual present at Thursday’s meeting, environmental stewardship and energy conservation were among the agenda items. Ford noted that Wynn Calder, an outside expert on environmental sustainability, spoke at the meeting regarding the energy challenge that will inevitably impact current students.
Also present at this meeting was committee member and Student Council President Jeff Rosen ’07, whose interschool energy-conserving project, the Green Cup Challenge, has been underway for three weeks now. Along with fourteen other preparatory schools, Choate is currently involved in an energy competition to see which institution can reduce electrical consumption by the greatest percentage from January 26th to February 26th.
In an email to the faculty, Manager of Energy Management Systems Steve Cahoon, who played a large role in organizing the challenge, noted that, “the competition and activities are primarily geared towards the students but the involvement of the entire Choate community is essential for the success of the Green Cup Challenge.”
To some, Choate’s recent, publicized efforts to conserve energy has been a testament to the administrations desire to tackle global environmental issues. In a larger context, the January 22nd edition of The New Yorker, climate journalist Elizabeth Kolbert addressed the concern of energy usage in a profile of Amory Lovins, a renowned American environmentalist known for his popularizing energy-efficiency principles to corporate audiences. As Kolbert notes, “This year, Americans will consume close to four trillion kilowatt hours of electricity. In addition, we will burn through a hundred and forty-three billion gallons of gasoline, which at current retail prices will cost us some three hundred and sixty billion dollars.”
However, while Choate’s administration has focused most of its own attention on the habits of students and faculty, it has not fully addressed other significant issues – updating current electrical, heating, and cooling systems, renovating outdated buildings, and searching for alternative sources of energy.
If the administration is not doing its part to reduce energy consumption, some wonder, is it fair to ask students and faculty to do the same?
According to Chief Financial Officer Richard Saltz, however, “The administration and staff are very committed to energy conservation and sustainability.” As Saltz explained, “The school recently spent $1.1 million on electric and heat conservation improvements which will save approximately $290,000 per year. Room sensors, centralized digital controls, new boilers, and improved lighting and room monitoring devices have been installed.”
Cahoon, whose job entails finding ways to use energy more efficiently while maintaining a reasonable comfort level, agrees. “[The administration] is looking to do things where it can.” Cahoon adds, “The bottom line is there are so many buildings on campus that need work…so the pool of money still has to be prioritized in terms of what can be done.”
According to Cahoon, there is no precise way to measure overall energy consumption at Choate Rosemary Hall. When asked what building utilizes the most energy, Cahoon was unable to provide a definitive answer. While the Energy Manager speculated that Hill House, given its size and multiple functions, is the greatest energy consumer, the process of determining this fact is complicated and arduous. As Cahoon explained, total energy consumption takes into consideration a number of factors, including electricity, heating, and cooling. Subsequently, in order to accurately account for overall energy usage at Choate, these components must be considered independently.
In terms of electricity, two high voltage electrical cables that run underground power most of Choate’s 400-acre campus. The lines ultimately feed into large transformers located at various places, whereupon voltage is reduced to the appropriate level to go into buildings. Two high voltage lines may not seem energy efficient, but Cahoon insists that both cables are necessary. “There are two lines so that if there is a problem with the electrical company or we have to do some maintenance on one section,” he explained, “we can isolate the line, and then switch over to the other.”
Choate buys its electrical energy strictly from the Wallingford Electric division of Wallingford’s Department of Public Utilities. While the school currently receives rebates for some energy projects, the overall cost of electricity has risen significantly over the past few years. In 2005, the school spent $565,536 on electrical bills. A year later, in 2006, the cost of electrical energy exceeded $730,000, a significant increase even considering Connecticut’s high retail electricity prices. Saltz, however, warns against attributing this inflation just to greater energy consumption, maintaining that, “there are many factors impacting these numbers including outside temperature and weather conditions, general usage, and price.”
Interestingly, Choate’s voltage system does not supply the entire campus. Many buildings receive power from the electrical lines that run through the town of Wallingford. Faculty residences as well as smaller dormitories, like Richardson, Lewis, Walsh, Pratt, and Homestead, rely on these outside sources for power.
The main reason for Choate’s dependence on two separate systems – its own voltage cables and the town’s electrical lines – is that it reduces overall electrical costs. By essentially relying on more than one source of electrical energy, the school gets the best price on a kilowatt per hours basis. Unfortunately, according to some, this method proves extremely ineffective in measuring electricity, and therefore monitoring energy consumption.
As indicated by Brown Professor Kurt Teichart in his paper on electrical efficiency presented at Brown University’s Ball State Greening of the Campus Conference, “Electricity generation contributes to air pollution, including 35 percent of all US emissions of carbon dioxide. It also accounts for 75 percent and 38 percent of all US emissions of sulfur dioxides and nitrogen oxides, respectively.” Teichart went on to suggest various methods of reducing harmful emissions for larger institutions, such as installing monitors in every facility. While one meter in Choate’s Science Center measures voltage, the school does not possess the technology to evaluate electricity usage in any other building.
At most institutions, light energy is the primary yield of electrical energy. As stated in a memo from the Waste Reduction and Transfer Foundation (WRATT), an organization that has conducted waste reduction and energy use assessments for over 500 high school and college facilities in the U.S., “A substantial amount of electricity can be saved by changing the equipment and approaches used in lighting facilities, as lighting can account for over 40% of a building’s total electrical load.”
Both Cahoon and Saltz insist that Choate’s administration has taken significant steps to reduce visible light emissions. For example, “this past summer, noted Cahoon, we did a large energy project that replaced older lighting systems, with upgraded fluorescent lights. The older versions, while fluorescent, weren’t as energy efficient as the newer ones.” About 1,200 old style T-12 fluorescent lamps were upgraded to newer, more efficient T-8 bulbs in the hockey rink and gymnasium. Also installed in many classrooms were lighting occupancy sensors that automatically shut off in vacant areas after approximately ten minutes.
Despite these upgrades, the Choate campus is in need of many improvements if the school seeks to be environmentally sustainable. The Carl C. Icahn Center for Science, for instance, is just one facility that contains incandescent lighting. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, an incandescent bulb is about one quarter as efficient as a fluorescent lamp and produces about six times as much heat. In addition, while some classrooms possess occupancy sensors, this equipment is conspicuously absent from nonacademic buildings, faculty homes, and, perhaps most importantly, dormitories.
In its “Waste Reduction and Energy Conservation” memo, the WRATT offers numerous recommendations that the Choate administration could find helpful in reducing electricity usage. For example, the organization suggests attaining light power densities between 0.8 and 1.2 connected watts per square foot, considering a combination of natural day lighting and automatic dimming controls, switching to fluorescent fixtures using high-output T-5 lamps, and substituting timer-controlled security lighting for photo sensor – controlled security lighting.
In addition to electricity, heating, ventilation and cooling (HVAC) equipment utilize a substantial amount of energy. At Choate Rosemary Hall, there is no standardized HVAC system. The type of structure and its primary function ultimately determines how a particular building receives either heating or cooling.
A few facilities on campus, for example, provide heat for smaller buildings, faculty residences, and dormitories. According to Cahoon, the heating system in Hill House feeds heat into such dormitories as Hall, West Wing, Hill House, Library, Bungalow, Woodhouse, Combination, as well as buildings like Steele Hall and the Chapel. A large boiler in Memorial House provides heating for Nichols and Squire Stanley residences. As estimated by Cahoon, there are approximately 80 different buildings with its own boiler or oil tank unit. Any facility that does not possess a main unit or does not receive heat from one has its own, individual HVAC system.
To complicate matters, the types of heating and cooling systems in the larger, main units vary as well. In Hill House and the Johnson Athletic Center, for example, a boiler supplies heat while a chilled-water system is used for cooling. According to Cahoon, this system is the most energy efficient, but “there are certainly some drawbacks to it.” As the Energy Manager notes, a chilled- water system costs more to install, run, and maintain, which would explain why the school only has two. In the Science Center and the Paul Mellon Humanities Center, for instance, a heat pump system provides both heating and cooling.
As indicated by Cahoon, a heat pump functions on the same principle as refrigerators and air conditioners - a liquid absorbs heat as it turns into a gas, and releases heat as it returns to a liquid state. The benefit of such a system is that a building’s compressor can be used for either heating or cooling. Essentially, one room can be heated, while another cooled. Explains Cahoon, “It was a system that, in the late 1980’s early 1990’s, was widely used in office buildings and schools.” The Science Center was constructed in 1989, and the Humanities Center was renovated that same year.
“At the time, a heat pump system was a very efficient way of heating and cooling,” maintains Cahoon, who notes, “Sometimes, in the winter, the heat pumps don’t generate as much heat [compared to chilled-water systems] so it takes longer to heat up the rooms.” In addition, the system “runs a little bit longer and uses more energy.” Cahoon insists, however, that Choate’s heat pump system is better for building occupants since it provides greatest overall comfort. Not everyone agrees.
For History, Philosophy, Religion & Social Sciences Department Head Gwenith Heuss-Severance, whose Humanities Center office has been without a functioning heat unit since last winter, the heat pump system has proven to be ineffective. According to Heuss-Severance, “I brought in a space heater from home and use it when I am in my office.”
In an email correspondence, Arnulf Grubler, a world-renowned energy consultant, best-selling author, and part-time Yale professor, noted, “There are indeed very many systems that have proven ineffective in conserving energy, one of which is the heat pump system.” Grubler, who has studied major transitions in energy and technology systems that occurred during the last 300 years and is also an energy futurist serving as lead author for two major studies, indicated that, for an institution like Choate, geo-thermal heating systems would be most energy efficient.
As Chief Financial Officer Richard Saltz explained, geo-thermal systems will be installed for heat and ventilation in the new $22 million dormitory on North Elm Street. According to Project Manager Joe Crouse, “We’ve put in a geo-thermal heating and cooling system that is extremely energy efficient.” He continued, “We feel that the additional cost upfront will actually pay itself back within an eight to ten year window. After that, the school will be paying much less for energy consumption.”
Even with the installation of a geo-thermal heating system in the new dormitory, other campus buildings would still be connected to less energy efficient HVAC equipment. When asked if the administration was willing to undergo a massive renovation, Cahoon was unable to provide a definite answer. “It doesn’t mean that in the next ten years when buildings get renovated that it couldn’t be done,” explained Cahoon, “but it would take a lot of work and significant funding.”
Currently, the school has no straightforward way of measuring overall energy output of HVAC equipment and utilities. Explained Cahoon, “In terms of energy, we don’t measure the output, we measure how we control either the steam pressure or, if they are hot water boilers, the temperature coming out.” He continued, “As the outdoor temperature changes, we reduce the temperature of the water going out, because on a 50 degree day, you don’t need as hot as water as you would on a 20 degree day. That’s a way of saving energy – by not running the boilers as high.”
While a computerized control system can track the heating in certain large facilities, it does not take into account the entire campus. Choate does not own meters that can measure HVAC energy output in every major facility. According to Cahoon, “We have tried to install some meters and sensors so that we can [measure the output]. But in the older buildings, we don’t have anything like that.”
The most accurate way to calculate HVAC energy consumption is to examine how much fuel the campus is consuming. Currently, Choate buys its oil in large contracts from Tuxhis-Orhs, a company based in New Haven, for $2.11 per gallon. According to Cahoon, the school will use roughly 420,000 gallons of oil for this school year. While Choate spent approximately $585,630 on oil in 2005, the yearly cost of fuel rose to $761,677 a year later, in 2006.
With the recent jump in oil prices, many believe the school should be looking to use alternate sources of energy, particularly renewable energy. As stated by the EPA, renewable energy is energy derived from resources that are regenerative and cannot be depleted. Types of renewable energy range from solar power and wind power to liquid biofuel and solid biomass. As indicated by Richard Saltz, “We have had discussions with companies providing electricity generated by wind sources, hydro power and similar sources. But to date we have not agreed to any alternative source for power.”
At the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, the search for clean energy alternative sources has been at the forefront of the school’s pledge to go green. In a brochure citing Yale’s emissions goals outlines what the school has accomplished in terms of improving energy production and optimizing energy use. Among the 25 points are building a $100 million co-generation facility, using cleaner No. 2 fuel oil, installing solar panels, and re-commissioning HVAC in 90 buildings.
In an email exhange with Robert Ferretti, the Program Manager at Yale’s Office of Sustainability, he explained, “In October of 2005, Yale University President, Richard Levin, announced Yale’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 10% below 1990 levels by 2020. In order to achieve this goal, Yale as an institution (faculty, staff, and students) is examining its energy use and changing its habits through conservation, procurement, and production policies.”
Rayna Caldwell, a Master’s Candidate at Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, noted, “There is an agency that specializes in helping campuses reduce their energy usage primarily in the interest of slowing down global warming, Clean Air Cool Planet. They have software that can guide one through the process of developing a greenhouse gas inventory.” Caldwell also recommended hiring an Energy Savings Company (ESCO) to make an assessment of the school’s energy use and to calculate how much money Choate could save by instituting conservation practices.
