Since signing the Illinois Climate Action Plan in 2010, the campus has embraced a fuel optimization strategy: where feasible, they have elected to utilize lower CO2 purchased electricity from MISO and to back off on their use of on-site existing coal and gas cogeneration facilities. This strategy, combined with the other measures described here, has led to a significant decrease in their CO2 emissions, and they have been able to go three summers in a row without burning any coal.

Multi-disciplinary teams work through high energy-use buildings to re-commission the buildings, with an emphasis on HVAC systems and Controls and temperature setbacks (often referred to as “scheduling”). Each year, buildings are selected from the top 100 energy consumption buildings. The RCx teams completed 40 buildings, with an average of 26.5% energy reduction since beginning the program in FY08. In total, RCx efforts reduced energy costs by over $14M.