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system, total building, and making
minor adjustments as needed,”
says Jason Vallance, a commissioning
engineer with Physical
Plant. “The intention is to ensure
that each building we evaluate is
operating as close as possible to
the current facility requirement
with what is currently installed.
“It is through these slight
changes and optimizations that
energy consumption is lowered.”
And while MSU is investing
millions of dollars into this work,
it won’t take long to see a return
on investment.
“The average payback is about
seven years, and that includes
funding the commissioning team
that is doing the work, the consultants,
hiring the contractors and
so on,” says Boomer.
In addition to Peter Basso and
Black and Veatch, a number of
other engineering and consulting
firms have been hired by MSU to
do much of the initial work on the
buildings.
“This has proven to be a winwin
situation,” Boomer says.
“Jobs are created by this need and
MSU benefits by getting valuable
work done at reasonable rates.”
Despite recent upticks in the
nation’s economy, Michigan continues
to feel the brunt of it. “We
work with a lot of Michigan firms
that otherwise wouldn’t be able
to hire or even keep many of their
employees,” Boomer says.
Saving energy
campus wide
Retro-commissioning is just
one of many examples of how
MSU is performing as an environmental
steward. The following
are a number of other ongoing
projects that demonstrate how
MSU is truly green.
Anaerobic Digester
Later this year MSU will debut
its second on-campus anaerobic
digester, a contraption that takes
organic waste from the university’s
farms and dining halls and turns it
into a renewable source of energy.
Anaerobic digesters take
waste from livestock and store
it in a tank that is deprived of
oxygen. This allows the waste
materials to decompose quickly
and produces methane that can
be captured and used as fuel.
Otherwise, methane released by
waste decomposition in the open
represents an extremely potent
greenhouse gas.
Not only will this process help
keep waste materials from heading
to the landfill, it also will produce
enough electricity to power
several south campus buildings.
In comparison, a smaller
anaerobic digester already in use
at MSU for research purposes (the
Anaerobic Digester Research and
Education Center), uses pretty
much all of the biogas that is
produced to run the system.
“Once complete, this system
will be the largest on a college
campus in the United States,”
says Dana Kirk, a specialist from
MSU’s Dept. of Biosystems and
Agricultural Engineering who
is overseeing the project. “It will
be the largest in volume and in
energy output.”
Alternative energies
When it was constructed in
2009, MSU’s Recycling Center
and Surplus Store became the
first on-campus building to use
rooftop solar panels to generate
power. The panels produce
about 10 percent of the facility’s
electricity. Other green features
of the building include the use
of recycled glass in the concrete
around the building, and rainwater
collection which is used
for toilets, urinals and power
washers.
The MSU Pavilion also
generates electricity using a solar
photovoltaic system.
The new addition to the
Life Sciences Building will use
geothermal energy sources.
Geothermal energy is generated
from heat out of the earth’s core.
The addition—the Bott Building
for Nursing Education and
Research—is scheduled to open in
November.
For more information on how
the geothermal field will work in
the Bott Building, check out this
video: construction.msu.edu/
index.cfm/projects/bott-building.
Biofuels
The T.B. Simon Power Plant
burns biomass as a step toward
fewer emissions and cleaner air.
Of the plant’s five boilers, one
is a fluidized-bed boiler specifically
for renewable fuels. Earlier
this year, power plant engineers
increased the amount of biofuel
burned each day from 20 tons to
30 tons.
The biofuel comes from collaboration
with other university
departments. Plant waste collected
by Landscape Services throughout
the year is ground down into wood
chips that feed the burners. The
Kellogg Biological Station and the
Dept. of Crop and Soil Sciences
research switch grass as a renewable
source to determine its yield per
acre and its energy output. Once
a year, the power plant receives a
crop. In January, 10 tons out of the
30 tons daily of renewable energy
used was switch grass.
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