Energy consumption at UNC increased from 2017 to 2018, despite UNC's goal of reducing Energy Use Intensity by 40 percent between 2003 and 2025.
Since 2003, UNC reported a 33 percent reduction in EUI, the amount of energy used per square foot per year, by 2017. This number dropped to 31 percent for the 2018 fiscal year.
Cindy Register, assistant director of engineering services for Energy Management at UNC, said the increased EUI on campus in 2018 was primarily a result of increased steam and chilled water consumption. Steam and chilled water production is a large part of the process that produces energy for buildings, including heat, lighting and power.
The energy goal was put in place by an executive order from Gov. Roy Cooper in October 2018. The order is a guiding measure for all state-owned buildings, including university buildings, to decrease EUI.
In order to meet the 40 percent energy reduction goal by 2025, Energy Management will focus on investigating why there was an increased use of steam and working on ways to reverse the increased use, Register said.
To reduce steam and chilled water consumption, Energy Management will repair key parts of the system that can drain energy when damaged, schedule off-hours for lab sterilization equipment that use steam production and use water purification systems that do not require a heating and distilling process in labs, Register said.
“It’s important for us to save energy because we are protecting our resources, which is very critical, and we also save money,” Register said. “We’re saving dollars that we would spend to buy energy.”
And the dollars are critical.
Since 2003, UNC had saved $382.6 million in energy costs by the end of 2018, Register said. Cost is a driving factor for universities' efforts to reduce energy consumption.
