Page 39 - College Planning & Management, April 2017

Case Histories REAL-WORLD SOLUTIONS
IEnergy Efficiency Made Easy
N 1825, MIAMI UNIVERSITY sold by the simultaneous cooling and (Oxford, OH) built the three-story heating capability. Energy modeling also Elliott Hall men’s residence and its showed a total building energy usage of
mirror image, Stoddard Hall, nine years later. In 1972, both halls were placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
In 2010, Miami University (Miami) tasked its physical facilities department with devel- oping a utility master plan to grow its campus and shrink energy costs. Miami made geo- thermal cooling and heating a centerpiece of its sustainability strategy and committed to ending on-campus coal burning by 2025.
With Miami’s sustainability goals and the unique cooling and heating require- ments of the two older buildings, they immediately thought of Variable Refriger- ant Flow (VRF) systems from Mitsubishi Electric Cooling & Heating (Mitsubishi Electric). The team was impressed by the level of engineering design, but was really
43 kBTU/h per square foot per year. Seventeen 600-foot-deep geothermal
wells were placed under the surrounding sidewalks. With no modern footings
150 years ago, there was no space for the Mitsubishi Electric water-source heat pumps. Easy-to-access mechanical rooms were built into each hall’s attic for three heat pumps and associated controls hardware.
To maintain the building’s architectural integrity, custom cabinets were designed and built to house the indoor units. These cabinets were only possible because of the two-pipe system design.
Metered as one, the two halls showed 2010- 2011 annual energy usage of 740,000 kBTU/h. Following the Mitsubishi Electric installation, this number dropped to 346,000 kBTU/h —
Miami University maintained the architectural integrity of their historic residence halls and also realized great energy savings, with help from Mitsubishi Electric VRF systems.
a 61 percent decrease in energy consumption compared to 2010. The oldest buildings on campus are now the most energy efficient.
Miami is so impressed with Mitsubishi Electric systems that they are now their system of choice for all new outlying build- ings not tied into the central plant.
RHVAC Technology Transforms Space
ANDOLPH COMMUNITY Education and Industrial Center’s (CEIC) College (RCC) in Asheville, NC, cooling system is 184 IQHC active chilled recycled a neighboring indus- beams and two Pinnacle dedicated outdoor
www.mitsubishipro.com
Randolph Community College transformed a neighboring outdated factory into a high-efficiency, LEED Gold facility with help from innovative SEMCO products.
nology and an ice storage system supplies the chilled beams’ water loop.
In addition to perfect indoor environ- mental conditions, the CEIC’s comprehensive energy savings result provides a quick six- yearpaybackofHVACequipmentcosts. CPM
www.semcohvac.com
trial factory into a LEED Gold showcase using the HVAC industry’s most innovative equipment.
Transforming the former 46,000-square- foot, $850,000 Klaussner Furniture Plant’s un-insulated brick shell into a high-efficiency educational facility proved challenging
for two Raleigh-based firms, consulting engineering firm Progressive Design Col- laborative (PDC) and architecture firm Smith Sinnett Architecture.
With the encouragement of RCC’s Director of Facilities Cindi Goodwin,
PDC thought well beyond convention and designed one of the nation’s first combina- tions of active chilled beams with an off- peak hours ice storage/chilled water loop.
The foundation of the Continuing
air systems (DOAS) — both products man- ufactured by SEMCO, Columbia, MO. The combination of chilled beams and DOAS provide air movement, noise abatement, energy efficiency and a tight tolerance of indoor air quality in terms of temperature and relative humidity. The environmen-
tal conditions provide an unprecedented learning environment of quiet, indoor air comfort for RCC students.
The ceiling-mounted two-pipe chilled beams, which range from two to 10-feet
in length, supply all of the $7.6-million facility’s cooling. Air cooled by the chilled beams descends to the occupied space and pushes warmer air up to be chilled again in a perpetual air displacement strategy. A 130-ton air-cooled chiller with scroll tech-
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