To All Physical Plant Staff,
The past several days of unseasonably high temperatures have brought some challenges to our
staff in Physical Plant as the need for cooling rather than heating put a little twist in the normal
operation. Most people on campus probably do not understand the level of difficulty it is to go
from a heating only mode to a cooling mode especially when it will be only for a few days at an
abnormal time of year. In addition, many building systems are not designed to do both at the
same time, although there are many days that both are needed, sometimes at the same time of the
day, challenging to say the least.
I want to commend our staff with the use of our designed strategy to be able to back feed the
research complexes with the HSRF chillers in the event of an emergency and/or operational
need. Since we are wrapping up the maintenance of our central plant it was not available to
provide cooling just yet. So we had some cooling where previously we would have been stuck.
The planning, design and installation of our central facilities has been a major benefit to UVM
both from a cost savings and operational efficiency, redundancy, and maintainability. It is the
collective thoughts of many of you that have created the “system”. The cost savings whether in
avoided costs for new systems, operations, energy savings or future opportunity savings are real.
Ten years ago I stated that we will somehow keep our utility usage (water, electric, gas and oil)
proportionally less than the anticipated growth on campus. WE can all be proud of the fact that
after a decade of extensive building expansion and campus growth in every way, student faculty
staff conferences and events etc. this unbelievable goal has been reached.
One might ask, how can you increase the campus footprint by almost 40%, increase enrollment
by almost 40% increase Faculty and staff 14% have many, many more conferences and events
and not increase the electrical demand, reduce the steam demand and use hundreds of thousand
gallons less water. All this while absorbing continued budget cuts in our operations and
maintenance.
I will tell you. It is the collective thoughts, strategies, planning, sleepless nights, good design
and implementation. It is the tweaking of controls, refining schedules of HVAC systems,
installing energy efficient devices, using proper water treatment, good communication and
listening to good ideas and implementing them. It is challenging the system and lobbying for the
resources to implement long term solutions to complex but mostly predictable problems. It is
selecting good tools and information systems to allow us to see the bigger picture, and it is
having good training where people can perform their tasks and go home safely in a very
dangerous environment. All of the above are done with great human capital.
As you know I do not typically send out long winded memos. But I feel the need to let you all
know how proud I am as the Director of Physical Plant at UVM when I see the effort, expertise,
thoughtfulness, and never ending dedication by our staff. Life goes on and know body would
even know that we basically performed a miracle in the sustainability, efficiency, engineering,
operation and planning worlds. So now at least you know.
Attached are some figures I put together recently that sum up a decade of success. So I will
challenge all of us for the next decade to further reduce our utility impact by using our collective
thoughts, ideas and continued strategies to allow campus growth and succeed while working
smarter and safer. Collectively we can develop strategies on reducing our peak demand by 1
megawatt or 1360 Horse Power over the next several years. I have also attached a list of some
ideas/projects. Please send me more to add to the list. There is no 1 MW project. There are
many, any smaller ideas that result in overall savings.
Thank you and keep up the good work.
Sal
*(data from UVM source book and campus planning)