Green Campus Challenge

An Inclusive Approach Towards Fostering Energy Efficiency in University campuses

Ana Cravo, IN+ana.cravo@ist.utl.pt

Carlos Silva, MIT Portugal André Pina, IN+/MIT Portugal

João Fumega, IN+/MIT PortugalMiguel Carvalho, IN+/MIT Portugal

Paulo Ferrão,  IN+/MIT Portugal

The EU’s 2020 goals established a 20% improvement on energy efficiency;

The European Commission acknowledges that one of the greatest energy saving potentials lies in buildings where it is possible to achieve reductions up to 50% (EU, 2011);

Public administrations in EU Member States can save between 20% to 30% of their energy use (heat and electricity) by 2020 (ADENE, 2008);

The Portuguese Action Plan for the Energy Efficiency also states the importance of the public building sector to increase the energy efficiency investments, contributing to the target of a 10% energy reduction (PNAEE, 2008 ).

Universities, as places of innovation and creativity have therefore a special role, along with technical schools and industry, in the task of creating “green practitioners”.

Green Campus Challenge – context

The Green Campus Challenge (GCC) - Energy Efficiency in Higher Education aims to promote energy efficiency in university campuses;

The Green Campus Challenge was launched in March 2011. It is funded by ERSE trough PPEEC and it is a collaboration of IST/MIT Portugal, INTELI and SelfEnergy;

The GCC initiative targeted the overall Portuguese higher education network, consisting of 316 institutions and which in 2010/2011 accounted for approximately 391.000 students and 25.000 faculty staff (DGES-MCTES, 2012);

The main goal is to develop multidisciplinary teams to conduct an energy audit to a specific building of a university campus and to prepare an energy efficiency report for that building.

Green Campus Challenge

The teams were asked to be formed by 50% of students, particularly by people from different areas of study and institutions; faculty members and technical staff could also compose the team.

The best 3 projects receive monetary prizes, as well as the best technical and behavioural measures;

Industry is present in the organization of the challenge and in the composition of the jury:

Green Campus Challenge

Green Campus Challenge – Strategy

Technical Webinars 1h

duration plus Q&A; Are available

online

Monetary prizes for the winning teams

Implementation of the best selected measures through Industry partnershipsTechnical Visits &

Energy MeasuresTechnical visits were held to the buildings

and later energy measurement devices were installed in the

buildings to analyse the energy consumptions

Best Practices Book

Participating teams will contribute towards the

preparation of an Energy Efficiency

Best Practice report

Institutions Engagement

Gather the support of Higher Education

institutions with the commitment of both the

Faculty and Technical staff

ChallengePreparation of a

energy efficiency plan for a building on a selected Campus

Teams CompositionMust include at

least a professor or a technical staff in the team; 50% of the

team members should be students

JuryThe jury is constituted

by 14 experts from academia and

industry, from sciences to humanistic areas

A series of technical webinars on energy efficiency topics were broadcasted live: Webinar 1: Efficient Energy Production Systems – Maria

João Rodrigues (APISOLAR) Webinar 2: Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning

Systems – Carlos Soares (Enerone) Webinar 3: Consumptions management – Miguel Águas

(Lisboa e-nova) Webinar 4: Buildings surroundings – Laura Aelenei

(LNEG) Webinar 5: Energy Audits – Hugo Fonte (Selfenergy) Webinar 6: Factors & Economic valuation of measures –

Carlos Silva (IST)

The teams could interact with questions on Facebook; Videos are available on Youtube:

youtubecom/user/greencampuspt.

Green Campus Challenge - Webinars

Technical visits

Launching Event

Webinars

Informative sessions

Green Campus Challenge - Events

49 institutions of higher education from all around the country participated in the challenge;

81 teams (more than 300 persons involved) from 29 institutions are registered to analyse 34 buildings;

Key achievements from the Green Campus Challenge

Science and Technology

93%

Socio-Economical Sciences

3%

Humanities4%

Area of study of the students

North Region19%

Central Region13%

Lisbon Metropolitan Area45%

South Region20%

Islands3%

Geographic distribution of the teams

Students87%

Faculty11%

Staff2%

Teams constitution

Key achievements from the Green Campus Challenge

The teams

The buildings

29 projects were submitted by the teams that referred to 22 buildings of 19 institutions.

12 projects were considered the Finalists of the challenge.

Key achievements from the Green Campus Challenge

Santarém10%

Évora7%

Lisboa31%

Coimbra14%

Porto14%

Bra-gança

7%

Por-talegre

7%Faro3%

Viana do Castelo3%

Leiria3%

Geographical distribution of the projects received for

the GCC

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 120

1

2

3

4

5

6

StaffProfessorsStudents

Team

Team

mem

bers

Team composition of the finalists

The 12 finalists projects showed very good results:

Implementation total cost: 2.881.049 €Electricty saving/year: 1.990.229 kWhFinantial saving/year: 413.569,62 €CO2 emissions saving/year: 921,655 tCO2

Payback period (investment of 5 years): 8,05 years

Key achievements from the Green Campus Challenge

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 130

0.51

1.52

2.53

3.54

4.5

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Cost of electricity sav-ings

Cost of avoided CO2

Team

Cost

of

ele

ctr

icit

y s

aved

(€/k

Wh)

Cost

of

avoid

ed C

O2 (

€/k

g

CO

2)

Conclusions and further work from the Green Campus Challenge

There is a real interest both from industry and academia to look at the energy efficiency in public buildings;

This initiative contributed to the debate around the need of creating a coherent and sustainable business model to support the energy efficiency benefits in the higher education;

Another aspect that may further boost the overall interest in energy efficiency in campus is the creation of an EU wide approach to the energy efficiency in the higher education sector, and efforts are being made to create a EU Green Campus Project.

Conclusions and further work from the Green Campus Challenge

For more information please visit our website:

http://www.greencampusportugal.info/

And our Facebook, Youtube and Slideshare pages:

http://www.facebook.com/GreenCampusPT

http://www.youtube.com/user/greencampuspt

http://www.slideshare.net/Green-Campus/

Thank you!