The University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Sustainability initiative to develop a more environmentally sustainable campus is currently executing the guidelines of their Climate Action Plan. To ensure that the School of Veterinary Medicine’s Hill Pavilion adhered to the goals of Climate Action Plan, AKF was one of two engineering firms awarded contracts to develop a pilot program – intended to later be applied across the entire campus – identifying opportunities for energy reductions. AKF performed a detailed energy audit including monitoring-based commissioning services for Hill Pavilion. The successful completion of the study led to AKF being awarded five additional laboratory facility projects at the University, with the goal of replicating the Hill Pavilion investigation.
Hill Pavilion is the primary teaching and research facility of the School of Veterinary Medicine and contains numerous laboratory, vivarium, and cage/rack wash spaces with a significant number of bio-safety cabinets and fume hoods. The laboratory and vivarium spaces host a variety of energy intensive research equipment and are equipped with air-monitoring systems to control ventilation.
The pilot program analysis identified an energy reduction of 44% in chilled water, 30% in steam, and 3% in electricity. Several energy conservation opportunities identified had less than a one-year payback, including the following:
• Implementation of resets and schedules for 100% outside air AHUs
• Re-tuning of heat recovery systems
• Air changes/hour (ACH) reduction to University of Pennsylvania standards
• Fume hood conversion to variable volume with user-based controls (UBC)
In addition, AKF recommended evaluating the following measures for future study:
• Wind wake analysis/exhaust re-entrainment study
• Installation of direct-vented cage racks
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