UC Best Practice Award winners, 2011

UC Riverside School of Medicine Research Building: Among the building's features is the creative use of an automated shade control system to utilize daylight for as much the interior lighting as possible. Labs in the building are cooled with cold water that is circulated through "chilled beams" suspended from the ceiling to dramatically reduce energy use.

UC Irvine, Rowland Hall, HVAC design/retrofit : Laboratories can use two-thirds of the total energy consumed on university campuses. The retrofit of this lab building went beyond conventional upgrades to reduce ventilation fan use - one of the biggest energy guzzlers - by almost half. Sophisticated upgrades to fume hoods and laboratory air control valves, along with an innovative method for occupancy control, fine-tune air delivery to serve the users' needs.

UC Santa Cruz, Science Library, lighting design/upgrade: The in-house project team at UC Santa Cruz used lighting simulation software and datalogging tools borrowed from PG&E to identify and test cost-effective energy conserving strategies, which yielded savings of 52 percent. The retrofit reduced lighting fixture counts and illumination levels, while also enhancing visual comfort for library users.

UC Davis, Dutton Hall and Chemistry Building, MBCx: Monitoring-based commissioning first collects detailed data to learn how much energy a building's major systems are using. This data can determine if there are problems that need correcting, such as faulty control sequences or defective components. Using monitoring-based commissioning, the building adopted new control strategies that lowered the ventilation rate and reduced water heating at night when occupancy was low. That, along with adjusting exhaust ventilation to more efficient rates that match users' needs, achieved a combined 33 percent energy savings.

By Harry Mok

Eleven projects that highlight the latest innovations in energy-saving green building technologies are showcased in the 2011 Best Practice Awards from the California Higher Education Sustainability Conference.

The award winners, detailed in newly published case studies, exemplify the best practices for implementing sustainable design and energy-efficient operations at University of California, California State University and California Community College buildings and laboratories. These projects demonstrate the financial and climate action benefits of achieving UC's ambitious sustainability goals that include a 10 percent reduction in energy consumption and an overall approximately 25 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2014.

Among this year's honorees is the new UC Riverside School of Medicine Research Building, which won the Best Practice Award for overall sustainable design. The highly energy-efficient research center will be UC Riverside's first LEED-certified building and is expected to achieve a Gold rating.

The Best Practice Awards honor one project each from a UC, CSU and CCC campus in categories for overall sustainable design, HVAC design/retrofit and lighting design/retrofit. Also included are two projects in the category of monitoring-based commissioning (MBCx). The cost-effective green building solutions honored serve as models for future construction and retrofitting projects at university campuses.

"California campuses are national leaders in green building and energy efficiency," said Matt St.Clair, sustainability manager with the UC Office of the President who oversees the Best Practices Awards program. "These case studies capture and communicate the lessons learned from the award winners so that other campuses in the state and around the country can emulate these leaders. Equally important, these projects demonstrate that sustainability enables UC to operate more efficiently, reducing expenses at a time when the state has cut UC's budget."

The UC/CSU/CCC Energy Efficiency Partnership, a consortium with the state's four large investor-owned utilities (PG&E, San Diego Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and SoCalGas), sponsors the Best Practice Awards. Through the partnership, the utilities provide technical support and financial incentives for the state's public university and college campuses to become more energy efficient. In 2010, UC saved $21 million in energy costs due to projects initiated through the partnership.

The 2011 Best Practice Awards were presented at the California Higher Education Sustainability Conference this summer at CSU Long Beach. This is the seventh year the awards have been given out, and 68 case studies of innovative approaches to green building and design have been produced.

The new case studies are available in a summary format and posted (along with examples from past years) on the website of the UC Berkeley Green Building Research Center.

For more information contact:
Matt St.Clair
UC Office of the President
Matthew.StClair@ucop.edu
(510) 287-3897

David Lehrer
Green Building Research Center
lehrer@berkeley.edu
(510) 642-4950