- Arup’s consultants reduced energy usage at the University of California’s most energy intensive research laboratory, generating a 33% reduction in annual energy costs.
- The project has a simple payback of 0.6 years with an NPV of $6.25m.
- Arup’s initial study identified potential electricity savings of $1.7m, but that target was eventually exceeded by 19%.
The project was carried out in three stages. First, Arup undertook an initial opportunity assessment for monitoring-based commissioning and retro-commissioning at the Mount Zion research center. This established baseline data for energy use and costs and identified opportunities that would lead to a significant reduction in energy consumption.
Following this assessment, Arup was appointed to provide the design engineering, project management support, and commissioning and verification activities that would enable University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) to realise the opportunities identified in the assessment. After implementation, a report was issued to show the technical implementation and energy saving results for the project.
Before the project UCSF had no way to monitor its energy usage and was therefore unable to identify areas of intensive energy use. Arup’s work has assisted UCSF in the solving this problem and has also provided the client with the solutions to reduce energy within the building while saving money.
Arup also identified a number of other areas based on the improved building monitoring capabilities that UCSF may wish to investigate further to achieve even greater energy savings in the future. Arup’s work on the energy efficiency partnership at UCSF Mount Zion was recognized with a Retrofit Best Practice Award in 2009.
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