Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Wilmington, NC - University of North Carolina Wilmington was recognized at the North Carolina Annual Sustainable Energy Conference on March 28 for its performance in reducing energy consumption. The State Energy office presented UNCW with its Best Practices Award for the eastern region in recognition of the university's steady improvement in reducing British Thermal Units (BTU) per square feet, and in raising awareness on campus of the need to find ways to conserve. BTU is the standard unit of energy measurement in the United States.

"UNCW's energy consumption per square foot has decreased 8 percent over the past 2 years," reported Tom Freshwater, UNCW physical plant director. "Due to the recent increase in the cost of energy, particularly natural gas, it makes it even more important to install energy efficient equipment and to use good practices," he said.

Some of the energy-savings measures enacted that have resulted in the eight percent reduction over the last two years include greater focus on preventive maintenance so equipment operates more efficiently and cost effectively, engineered solutions such as occupancy sensors to turn off lights when not needed, replacing old equipment with new, more efficient equipment such as exchanging fire tube boilers with condensing boilers, and constructing and operating regional energy plants on campus that serve multiple buildings with less equipment. Some of the new equipment was made possible through the higher education capital projects bond funding.

In addition, the Conservation Awareness Team (CAT) worked with UNCW Office of Facilities staff to raise awareness of energy conservation. CAT published energy awareness and conservation tips for faculty and staff on @UNCW and participated in a campus Earth Day celebration by providing information and prizes for students.

For more information about the award or energy conservation practices at UNCW, contact Tom Freshwater, physical plant director, at 910.962.7673 or freshwatert@uncw.edu.

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