CAP Progress

 


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Energy Supply: 

  • We are making great progress with new solar projects but there is a lot of uncertainty with the grid that will be a challenge in this work. There are a lot of unknowns but we are making good progress. Great advances with solar - we're on our way to our 6MW 2033 goal. The next 4 megawatts for onsite solar just went out to bid for design.
  • The University has some funding budgeted for converting steam heat to low or medium-temperature water distribution systems.
  • A Catalytic Project at Carlson School of Management for Pre-Design feasibility involves an 80kW system solar rooftop on Carlson. This solar installation is one of ten sites that are currently in the pre-design phase for solar installations. This process will continue and they hope for decisions on installation scope and fund installation projects for 2025.

 

 

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Energy Demand: 

  • The University's Energy Management team is making progress with energy efficiency including identifying funding and creating working groups and policies as well as drafting an energy efficiency best practices list. A student project is underway looking at energy conservation campaigns.
  • Policy has been created that requires all new buildings to be net zero. A working group has been created to update the University's building standards with best practices for energy efficient design. Early progress has been made on determining financing for energy efficiency projects. 
  • A working group has been created to start looking at buildings to potentially decommission.
  • A Fall Detection Program is out for RFP. It is a software system similar to AI that looks at all building controls and will either auto-correct or inform staff using machine learning.

 

 

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Commuting: 

  • Safety improvements are coming for bikers/walkers! We have implemented surveys to help determine where opportunities are for commuting and have improvements to street infrastructure in the works to encourage walking and biking on/to/from campus. 
  • Upcoming: an RFP to look into microtransit services, potentially with on demand scheduling and flexible routes
  • We are working on creating a fee structure for EV charging on campus and will be working with vendors on future charging.
  • Information on housing & sustainable transportation options will soon be included in new employee orientation.

 

 

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University Fleet: 

  • We are working on switching our fleet over to EVs including efforts to secure funding, incentivize adoption, and install charging stations.
  • Success in year 1 will look like having the Food Ops charging bank implemented & continuing learning and bringing in the correct people to the conversation. 
  • Fleet Monitoring Program has now been rolled out. It uses a telematics device and rightsizing to figure out what is the correct vehicle for the job to save energy and gas.

 

 

 

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U Sponsored Travel

  • Progress is being made around editing policy to incentivize lower carbon options when traveling on University business. 
  • We are currently creating a working group and looking to start purchasing to track travel related emissions using a new dashboard. We are looking to add language around decarbonization/emissions tracking for ground transportation into existing procurement policies. Some education around travel best practices may be helpful to start shifting behavior.
  • An Office of Sustainability intern worked on U-sponsored travel related project in summer 2024. She looked into incentivizing hybrid conferences/events held on campus, education for sustainable travel choices, and incentivizing lower carbon travel options.