CEHD department conserves energy thanks to energy performance program

For the last year and a half, the Texas A&M College of Education and Human Development has been working to improve building efficiencies to help reduce energy consumption costs.

Specifically, the college has been involved in the Energy Performance Improvement (EPI) program. 

The program has been in use in different buildings around the Texas A&M campus since 2017, and the Human Clinical Research Facility (HCRF) has become the most recent addition.

HCRF recently completed an Energy Performance Improvement (EPI) program with the ultimate goal of decreasing operating costs.

Richard Kreider, Ph.D., Executive Director for HCRF, took a lead role in setting the department up with the EPI program.

“We were having some temperature management issues and our costs were relatively higher so they recommended we participate,” he says. “They said they would do the review and any savings realized over the year would go back in part to the unit.” 

In this performance evaluation, the EPI team made building adjustments and provided quarterly updates on how the conservation process was going.

Chris Dieckert, Supervisor of the EPI program, worked side by side with Dr. Kreider to initiate the program for the HCRF building.

“After looking at the utilities, we decided to meet with the building occupants every month to monitor the energy consumption projects and determine what effects of the energy projects were important monetary wise and consumption wise,” he says.

The results

Since taking part in this energy conservation program, CEHD has seen significant changes in its energy consumption and utility bill.

Overall, the EPI program has helped improve electrical, chilled water and heating/hot water efficiencies, and reduce utility costs. 

After the program completed its annual assessment of cost savings, the results showed that the college’s conservation efforts saved over $100,000 in utilities. The percentage reduction in cost from baseline evaluation to the performance year for all utilities was 42%. 

Individually, there is a 6% reduction in electricity, 43% reduction in chilled water, and 68% decrease in heating hot water consumption costs as a result of EPI conservation measures. 

 EPI allocates 50% of overall cost savings back to the academic unit to help continue improving the building’s energy systems.

For CEHD, this means that approximately $50,000 of additional funds will be distributed back to the Human Clinical Research Facility to be used for more energy and cost efficient utilities.