At the same time that the University of California, Berkeley was hosting its annual Engineering for Kids Day (E4K), Golden EnergTech, a team of four Berkeley engineering students, was competing at the US Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Case Competition in Washington DC. The team, which was sponsored by Knovel, took home the award of “Most Innovative Proposal.” The group consisted of team lead Nanavati Low (IEOR and Energy & Resources Minor ’16), Michael Chang (CEE and Architecture ‘15), Daniel Tjandra (Chemical Engineering ‘13), and Grace Vasiknanonte (Materials Science and Engineering ‘16). Their case, “Experimenting with Efficiency: Greening the Grant Process for Research Institutions” addressed the problem regarding the large energy footprint associated with research laboratories and lack of incentives, both through university administration and grant-making bodies, to promote energy efficiency.
From left, Team Member Nanavati Low, Competition Coordinator Nyla Khan, Team Member Michael Chang and Team Member Grace Vasiknanonte.
To tackle this problem, the Golden EnergTech team proposed a multi-pronged approach to address the major barriers for efficiency. Utilizing Knovel, the team looked up various topics ranging from building and energy efficiency guidelines to case studies analyzing HVAC systems and indoor thermal environments. The case study incorporated multiple disciplines (policy, engineering practicality/design, evaluation theories, current building trends, economics and finance) and consequently, the research papers, books, and other content found on the database assisted with the initial evaluation, background research, and development of the proposal.
The current university financial structure passes most of the energy savings to grant makers (in the form of lower facilities and administrative, or “F&A,” rates), cutting the financial incentive for universities and researchers. To alleviate the problem, the team restructured the rules governing the F&A to share the savings in order to give important players a financial impetus to save energy. A proposed “Efficiency Fund” would reinvest one year’s energy savings into energy star equipment and upgrades for the next year, creating a virtuous cycle of energy savings.
In addition, Golden EnergTech identified the biggest money inefficiencies in university research: procurement, decentralized servers, and the lack of preventative maintenance. A centralized procurement system could prevent redundancies and create a comprehensive catalogue of campus resources. Forgoing preventative maintenance has a long history of costing more long-term and compromises safety, including recent examples on UC Berkeley’s own campus. By saving money through streamlining procurement and maintenance, significant amounts of money can be freed and reinvested into energy. Upgrades done through university-utility partnerships are also highly effective according to the proposal, with multi-million dollar projects having payback periods as low as 3 years.
The team analyzed many best practices including successful equipment-sharing programs in the UK and an incentive program at UC Berkeley before developing a scalable proposal universities can implement nationwide. The proposal was general in order to respect each university’s unique ways of handling grant money and managing its research. The framework gave grant agencies the power to set efficiency milestones and reward improvements with changes to the F&A rules. It is ultimately up to the university and researcher to choose which of the many energy and money saving measures fits their situation and best helps them reach their goals.
This is the third year the US Department of Energy has hosted the Better Buildings Competition, supported by President Obama’s Better Buildings Initiative to reduce energy usage of commercial and industrial buildings by 20% by 2020. The competition focuses on real-world issues presented by case partners to which interdisciplinary teams from US higher institutions of education must develop their own 10-page solution and present at the US DOE campus.
After months of preparation, the team presented their proposal at the Department of Energy campus at Washington DC in front of a panel of judges, including energy experts from the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Academia, and U.S. GSA Federal Acquisition Management Office.
Golden EnergTech was only one of two undergraduate groups to be awarded the achievement among graduate student teams representing Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Yale, and more.
More information about the competition is available on its website. Thanks to team member Nanavati Low for writing this blog post.