SYRACUSE — Work continues on a $21 million project focused on energy-efficiency upgrades at the State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate Medical University in Syracuse.
The project is meant to save the school more than $1.3 million annually and remove about 6,250 tons of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere each year. That is equivalent of removing more than 1,180 cars from the road, according to a statement from the governor’s office.
The state anticipates all phases of the energy-efficiency improvement, which began in 2010, will be complete by the end of 2015. The project is part of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Build Smart NY initiative, which is intended to increase energy efficiency in state buildings by 20 percent over the next seven years.
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The New York Power Authority (NYPA) is financing and implementing the project. Officials from NYPA and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) highlighted the project during an event April 25 at Setnor Hall on the Upstate Medical campus.
NYSERDA is providing $335,000 for the NYPA initiative, according to the state.
The improvements include several building-system upgrades. Crews are installing high-efficiency lights and sensors to replace old lighting; enhancing heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems and building-management controls to improve energy efficiency; and installing new motors, variable-speed drives, boiler burners, water heaters, and chillers to further advance efficiency and lower the school’s operating costs, the state said.
The improvements also include an electrical and steam sub-metering installation that will permit real-time monitoring of the energy that “virtually” all the buildings on the campus are consuming. The sub-metering installation should be complete later this month, the state said.
National Grid provided $175,000 for lighting upgrades, such as the installation of light-emitting diode (LED) lighting, at the east and west parking garages of Upstate Medical University.
When including the half-million dollars in rebates and grants from NYSERDA and National Grid, and the more than $8 million in capital costs the school needed to spend regardless of the new energy-saving measures, the payback for Upstate Medical University is about eight years, after which the school will retain the full $1.3 million in recurring savings annually, according to NYPA.
This frees up dollars that Upstate Medical University can reinvest in other priority areas, Gil Quiniones, president and CEO of NYPA, said during the April 25 event.
“Helps the university, helps the faculty, and it helps the students,” Quiniones said.
The school spends about $13 million annually in electricity costs, Smith said, noting Upstate is a large, academic-medical center that has two hospitals and millions of square feet.
Smith also broke down the electric bill that Upstate faces on a daily basis.
“We expend $33,000 a day for electricity alone,” Smith said.
Upstate Medical has a regional mission, Smith said, that extends from Canada to Pennsylvania, and focuses on treatment of burns and trauma, and dealing with the uninsured.
Such a large footprint and regional mission requires “that we be efficient as we can be, not just with energy but with all of our resources.”
The ongoing project includes work at Weiskotten Hall that will result in annual energy-cost savings of $650,000, according to Upstate Medical. The work includes the installation of efficiency motors for HVAC systems, and retrofitting building chillers with variable-speed drives and new controls.
The annual energy-cost savings on Upstate Medical’s South Campus will total $300,000 following the lighting and lighting-control improvements in Silverman Hall and the Campus West building. The work also includes installation of new controls to provide occupancy-based energy usage for Silverman Hall and the Health Sciences Library.
In addition, the improvement projects on the North Campus will generate annual cost savings of $160,000. The work includes an upgrade of building-management systems serving Clark Hall, the Campus Activities Building, Jacobsen Hall, and the Institute for Human Performance.
The annual energy-cost savings at Upstate University Hospital will total about $355,000. Crews are adding variable-speed drives to East Wing chillers and installing variable-speed drivers for fan systems in operating rooms and intensive-care units, the school said.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com