Turn off the lights

Norwich has joined up with Efficiency Vermont and taking part in the Energy Leadership Challenge to reduce campus energy consumption by 7.5 percent in two years.

"Norwich has always been committed to energy conservation; in fact, we're one of the more energy-efficient campuses in the country. But we knew we could take it a step further," said Dave Magida, the chief administrative officer at Norwich.

"We're going to hop right on this. If there is money to be saved, and energy to be saved, we're going to go after it," Magida said.

Norwich has been working closely with Efficiency Vermont on this challenge. Nicole Ballinger, marketing product manager at Efficiency Vermont, said, "Right now Norwich is one of 40 participants in the Energy Leadership Challenge, and we're thrilled that you've joined in. We think it's terrific. There's just a couple of schools involved."

Efficiency Vermont so far has helped Norwich discuss its long-term plan, as far as energy consumption goes. It also plans to help with some of the funding.

"Efficiency Vermont is funding much of the cost of this study and they've also, historically, helped us with the cost of implementing some energy conservation, and have said that they would again. We're very grateful to Efficiency Vermont, very grateful," Magida said.

Tim Perrin, the account manager at Efficiency Vermont, said in a press release, "Norwich's leadership is exemplary. By setting an energy reduction goal, and developing a comprehensive plan to achieve it through this partnership, their investments will improve the operation of buildings and tackle deferred maintenance items, while achieving a rate of return that rivals historical endowment performance."

Norwich is also working closely with SourceOne, an energy consulting firm out of Boston. Magida said one of the reasons they chose SourceOne is that "they understand colleges and universities. We can't afford to have systems go down because we're a 24-hour-a-day operation."

Mike Hellmann, director of sales at SourceOne, said, "With respect to Norwich, we didn't have any specific involvement with Norwich signing up to Efficiency Vermont's Energy Leadership Challenge, however, it's probably better stated that we are supporting Norwich in that effort by allowing them to complete the necessary steps to meet that challenge, and thereby get the max incentive back from Efficiency Vermont."

Efficiency Vermont works to find what needs to be improved, and SourceOne figures out how to succeed in the challenge.

"In general with energy efficiency, 99 percent of the time it's a win-win situation," Ballinger said, "and Efficiency Vermont will be there to help [Norwich], get through any, if there were any, negative problems, and Efficiency Vermont would be there to help Norwich get through those hurdles."

The first step is an energy audit being done by SourceOne. Magida said, "This is just the preliminary report; it will take until January to finish it."

The energy audit will look at the performance of each building on campus and note the current operating conditions of all systems on campus. The audit will cover everything from "the power plant to the lights that are used, to the controls for heating and cooling," said Hellmann. In doing this audit SourceOne will be able to identify areas where additional savings can be made.

Magida said that if the energy conservation challenge goes well, changes will not be noticed on a visible level by students, faculty or staff. "If it's an energy conservation program done well, it doesn't impact people; however, we may be asking students, faculty and staff to help us with some habit changes on their end," Magida said.

The habit changes won't be very drastic. Simple tasks like turning off lights when not in use, closing windows when the weather gets cooler and reporting problems are key to helping reduce energy consumption, Magida explained.

"We're here to serve you," Magida said. "We can't repair systems that are operating improperly, unless we know about it. We have some students that, if their room is too hot, they just open up a window."

"Cultivating a consciousness of when people use energy" is important, Ballinger said. "If it plugs into the wall, it's using energy."

Although the habit changes may seem small, Magida said, "We burn 600 thousand gallons of oil a year. Even a range of 1 to 15 percent of energy consumed is reduced, that is a sizable impact on energy consumption."

With South Hall being the first LEED-certified building on campus (the Energy Leadership Challenge award to Norwich for an energy-efficient building), "Our plan is, and it's a goal set for us by the trustees, that every new building will be LEED silver, or better," said Magida. The newest building on campus, South Hall, is LEED Gold. The Wise Campus Center, which is the second newest building on campus, was built in the spirit of LEED, although Norwich did not apply the LEED certification, according to Magida.

Education is a key component of the challenge. "So part of it can be instruction to the faculty and the students at a university, which is often the case," Hellmann said.

"One of the things we've learned is that we've done a lousy job telling our story," Magida said. "We have to remember, just because we've been doing it for a long time, it's still innovative and interesting to students."