UNC Climate Action Plan: Netting out at zero by 2050

By Taylor Sisk, Staff Writer

Last month, UNC released its first Climate Action Plan, which sketched a roadmap to climate neutrality by mid-century. The plan is comprehensive and multi-faceted, but foremost among its objectives is improving energy efficiency in campus buildings.

The impetus for the plan came in 2006, when then-Chancellor James Moeser signed onto the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, pledging the university to achieve climate neutrality – meaning zero net greenhouse gas emissions – by 2050.

A campus-wide emissions inventory followed. A university climate project team now has taken that data, along with development plans and growth estimates and, according to the text of the plan, created a “projection of how the campus carbon footprint will expand if we continue with business as usual.”

The plan then lays out an agenda for achieving campus-wide climate neutrality.

Building energy efficiency is at the top of the list. But the plan also looks at a number of other opportunities, including: the Orange County Landfill methane capture and destruction project; a Duke Energy initiative to reduce the emissions intensity of its power plants; energy-efficiency proposals for Carolina North that include solar panels, heat-recovery chillers and a biomass gasification plant; and such longer-term strategies as replacing coal generation with torrefied wood (similar to charcoal).

First focus
The university’s Climate Action Plan is the product of the work of stakeholders from across the campus community, including representatives from energy services, facilities, transportation and waste reduction and recycling, with the help of four outside consulting firms. The plan was written by Daniel Arneman of UNC’s Energy Services Department. Arneman was hired in 2008 to measure the university’s carbon footprint and help map a strategy to achieve climate neutrality as pledged.

“If you think of your greenhouse inventory as a balance sheet,” Arneman said, “where every emission is a liability, you try to decrease those as much as possible through renewable energy and biofuel and things like that.

“Then for what you can’t reduce, you need to put assets on that balance sheet, and those tend to come in the form of renewable-energy credits or carbon offsets. Climate neutrality is the point at which those columns net to zero.”

The emissions inventory was the first step in determining where the university stood – no small task on a campus that, at the beginning of the 2008-09 school year, comprised 28,567 students, 3,450 faculty and 8,632 staff and spanned 729 acres with 17.5 million square feet of buildings, with major expansion on the immediate horizon.

The inventory showed that nearly 90 percent of greenhouse gas emissions were related to energy used in buildings.

“So our first focus has been on the buildings,” Arneman said, “understanding how they use energy so we can peel back the layers and find reductions and strategies for efficiencies.”

Arneman said that in casting a wide net and then selecting the projects that make the most financial sense in the near term, the project team determined that building energy efficiency clearly was the first place to focus.

“Then we anticipate that as carbon cap-and-trade or some other legislation comes along, the more expensive projects that involve fuel switching or renewable-energy applications will become financially viable,” Arneman said.

He said the university plans to pursue initiatives that look at commuting, reduced air travel and a more efficient vehicle fleet, “because neutrality demands looking at all the outliers, the small pieces as well as the large pieces. But building energy represents our biggest hurdle and our biggest opportunity.”
Addressing building energy entails looking from two perspectives:

How much energy are the buildings consuming and can they be run more efficiently?

Then:
How is the energy being supplied and how are the electricity, steam and chilled water being generated?

“In looking on both the supply and the demand sides, you tend to get synergies,” Arneman said. “If we can reduce the heat load of a building, maybe we can meet that heat load with a small solar thermal system.”

In many cases, improving efficiency is a matter of more closely monitoring and analyzing a building’s energy use to uncover structural or equipment deficiencies.

For example, Arneman noticed irregular energy performance trends in a building that was then discovered to have a defective HVAC system valve. Arneman estimates that continuing to operate with the defective valve would have cost the university $30,000 a year. Analyzing all 300 or so buildings on campus thus could lead to some pretty substantial savings.

Long term
The Orange County Landfill gas project is an energy-saving initiative that’s now in the design stage.

Phil Barner, manager of the university’s cogeneration systems, said he expects work at the landfill will be ready for bid later this month or early November, with a target for the start of construction in January 2010. 

“This would install the gas collection system at both the North and the South Landfill, as well as the enclosed flare at the landfill,” Barner said. “We hope to have this portion of the project operational by third quarter next year.

“We are targeting mid 2011 on having the pipe in the ground and the engine operational, supplying electricity to the university’s Facilities Services Complex along Airport Drive.”

That electricy also will be used for Carolina North.

The UNC project team has met with representatives of Duke Energy to determine how the carbon impact of the electricity the university purchases may change going forward.

“The amount of computing power goes up on campus every year, and there are more gadgets plugged into the residence halls,” Arneman said. “So we expect an increase in the amount of electricity we may need, which means an increase in carbon if everything stayed the same.”

Duke Energy told the climate project team about plans to incorporate renewables under the company’s renewable-energy portfolio standard. Duke Energy also is looking at adding more nuclear plants to the grid, which have zero carbon emissions.

“So as they do that, the electricity they produce on average is less carbon intensive.”

As for Carolina North, Arneman said the university will certainly incorporate climate and carbon thinking into the design, but that it’s not yet clear which options may be best, and many of the projections the project team has made are based on estimates.

An example he cites is the use of torrefied wood. Arneman said there are two or three companies that want to begin producing and distributing it, but “there’s this Catch 22 going on, where they can’t build the plant without commitments from buyers, but buyers don’t want to commit until they can sample the fuel.
“So there will be some back and forth before these renewable technologies really take off.”

The mandate
UNC is one of the largest universities to sign onto the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment pledge. The task is considerable, but Arneman is optimistic: “We’re headed in the right direction, and this is certainly a priority of the administration. There’s been great support in both developing the inventory and also in finding solutions.”

And it’s not just a matter of doing the right thing. Federally mandated emission caps, or some other form of regulation, are forthcoming.

“When that happens,” Arneman said, “we either reduce our carbon emissions or we end up paying for them in some way, shape or form.”

And that, he added, will help expedite opportunities for positive change.