Science&Health: UCLA efforts focus on saving energy, money

When students walk around campus, they expect to see lecture halls and libraries; few expect to see a towering power plant adjacent to their path.

Through the use of its cogeneration facility, UCLA supplies most of its own electricity, cooled water and steam, which is only the start of how the university uses energy efficiently, said David Johnson, director of energy services and utilities.

Motivated by the rising cost of energy as well as a concern for the environment, UCLA has utilized new techniques of energy conservation that have lowered the campus’ overall energy consumption per square foot by 12 percent in the last six years.

“In every decision that is made, there is always the thought of energy conservation,” Energy Manager Robert Striff said. “With rising fuel costs, we cannot use resources as we did in the past. We have to be responsible and use energy efficiently.”

One area UCLA is targeting in using energy efficiently is decreasing wasted energy through the use of occupancy sensors.

Twenty-four fume hoods in the Molecular Sciences building have had occupancy sensors installed recently, and the rest of the 292 fume hoods in the building are scheduled to be fitted with occupancy sensors in the next couple months, Striff said.

A fume hood is an enclosure in which many laboratory experiments are executed in. They serve to draw the vapors from the experiments out of the building.

The occupancy sensors reduce the flow rate of air in the hood from 100 feet per second to 60 feet per second when there is nobody in front of the hood, which reduces the amount of energy used to keep the fume hood operating.

“This is one of those measures that has a tremendous payback for us because we are wasting less cooled air and using less energy,” Striff said. “Conserving energy in this way is the right thing to do, and we eventually want most of the fume hoods on campus to have these sensors.”

Occupancy sensors for lighting systems have also become a priority in the last few years, and buildings less than three years old have occupancy sensors that will turn off the lights when nobody is present, Johnson said.

There are also occupancy sensors in the stairwells of Bunche Hall and the cogeneration facility so that some lights are turned off when no one is in the stairwells.

“When nobody is there, we don’t need to completely light the space, so we are working to use electricity efficiently while also providing adequate lighting,” Striff said.

In addition to using occupancy sensors for lights, UCLA has been in the process of changing the lights themselves to use energy more efficiently.

Over 600,000 fluorescent lights have been changed since 2000 from a 40 watt to a 32 watt bulb, which uses less energy. Incandescent bulbs have also been replaced with more energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs where possible, Johnson said.

“We are doing quite a bit to have conservation programs and increase efficiency of energy, but we are nowhere near the point we would like to be because it is expensive to go back and retrofit these things,” Johnson said.

UCLA also conserves energy by having its own power plant, which supplies all the steam and chilled water for the campus and 75 to 80 percent of the campus’ electricity.

The cogeneration facility reuses the heat produced in the process of burning fuel to create steam that drives the electric generators. This technique allows UCLA to convert 70 to 80 percent of the energy consumed as fuel into electricity, steam and chilled water. This is a ratio that is twice as efficient as a typical generating facility, Johnson said.

The chilled water is then utilized in a centralized air conditioning system that cools 50 to 60 buildings on campus.

One important area UCLA still needs to improve is raising the community consciousness level about the importance of energy conservation, Johnson said.

“People can make sure to turn lights off when they leave a room or do the simple act of closing the sash on a fume hood so not as much air is wasted,” Johnson said. “The best way to conserve energy is simply not to use it.”

Saving energy will ultimately come down to both administrators and individuals making the effort to control energy use, said Mary Nichols, director of UCLA’s Institute of the Environment.

“With the rising cost of energy and a greater awareness about the role energy use plays in creating air quality and global climate concerns, people are beginning to think about what they can do to save energy,” Nichols said.