The Business Case for Energy Efficiency at Cornell College
Joel Miller, facilities director at Cornell College, Mount Vernon, Iowa, has a mantra he follows on campus every day: “warm, safe and dry”. To keep students warm in their residence halls and classrooms, he worked with Cornell’s president and board of trustees to move from an antiquated central heating plant that produced steam heating for campus buildings to standalone gas-fired boilers for each building.
Olin Hall, a 46,000-square-foot residence hall that provides housing for 200 students, was among the farthest buildings from the central heating plant. Every time there was a steam leak to Olin, it was costly to repair.
“It’s not very hard to convince the board of trustees that we can either dig this up six times and spend money to repair it each time or we can spend the money on putting a standalone boiler in Olin with standalone building controls and efficient water heaters,” Miller notes.
He says it took his team a year and a half to figure out what building controls would work best for campus before they went back to the board with hard numbers for the boiler upgrades—and a few additional items. “To bring Olin into the 21st century, not only did it need new heat, but the residence hall also needed new windows that opened and were insulated. It was a perfect time to make these kinds of updates,” Miller remarks.
Miller contacted the local utility, Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based Alliant Energy, about rebates for the upgrades. “The rebate was enough to pay for another building’s upgrade the next year,” Miller recalls. “It was pretty easy. I think once the board knew how we accounted for every dollar, it wasn’t hard to convince them this was the right thing to do.”
This is just one piece of the overall effort to improve the energy efficiency of the Cornell College campus. In fact, energy savings is one of two chief goals for Cornell College’s facilities services.
“As a result of our work, we have received Alliant Energy’s highest award for energy-efficiency improvement,” Miller says. “We expect to use 150,000 fewer kilowatt hours of electricity per year, which will save us about $45,000 per year. That money can now be reinvested in the college.”
Interactive Content: Take a tour of Cornell College’s central heating plant and view the new standalone boilers in action at Olin Hall.
PHOTOS: Cornell College, unless otherwise noted