Energy

Submissions Due: March 8th, 2013 at 6:00pm
More details on the timeline available on the submittal page

In order to meet ambitious climate targets and manage operating costs, California colleges and universities are implementing increasingly sophisticated and complex energy strategies. The Energy Track seeks to highlight replicable best practices in energy conservation, efficiency, procurement, and generation while also exploring connections between energy and other aspects of operational sustainability, including new building design, water efficiency, student life programming, and foodservice. The Energy Track is also interested in showcasing examples of demonstration and deployment projects that use the campus physical plant as a living laboratory to test cutting-edge technologies.

Potential Session Ideas

  • Energy and water (Water and Landscape track)
    • Possible session topic: the nexus between campus energy and water infrastructure/ improving water efficiency through upgrades to steam loops, central plants, etc.
  • Energy and foodservice (Food Systems track)
    • Possible session topic: Improving energy efficiency in campus dining halls and in retail food operations.
  • Campus as a classroom for green jobs training programs (Curriculum track)
    • Possible session topic: examples of energy efficient HVAC and lighting systems, or on-campus renewable installations being used to train students to install or maintain such systems.
  • Integrating renewables/smart grid (Research track)
    • Possible session topics: campus microgrids/ integrating energy storage with on-campus generation;
    • Maximizing campus demand response
  • Energy in campus auxiliaries (Auxiliaries & Student Affairs)
    • Possible session topic: energy efficiency retrofits in residence halls, rec centers, and athletic facilities
    • Possible session topic: energy conservation programs in campus residence halls
  • Energy and the budget crisis (Institutionalizing Sustainability)
    • Possible session topic: decentralizing energy budgets so that departments bear some cost for energy usage (and space).
  • Ensuring persistence of savings from energy efficiency and conservation projects (Institutionalizing Sustainability)
    • Possible session topic: Maintaining MBCx performance over time
  • Designing for zero-net energy (Green Building: New construction; Local)
  • Electric vehicle infrastructure on campus (Transportation; Research)
  • Deep Energy Efficiency (Green Building: Operations; Local)
    • Possible session topic: scaling lighting retrofits and smart lab technologies
  • Energy and IT (Green Building: Operations; Transportation)
    • Possible session topics: Virtualization and server consolidation;
      o enabling telecommuting;
      o thin client computing
  • On site renewable energy
    • Possible session topics: Moving beyond 1 MW to larger onsite renewable energy generation;
      o net surplus energy as a revenue source
  • Developing renewable energy generation on sensitive sites (Social Equity track)