Energy Audit Team Completes Divinity School Assessment

Credit: Mike Conner Kevin Sheehan of FMO and Kevin Bright of OFS discuss a VFD's operation.

Last November, Harvard University’s Building Energy Auditing Service completed a comprehensive energy assessment of the Harvard Divinity School (HDS) campus. After completing an assessment at HDS’ Andover Library over the summer of 2009, the audit team won a competitive bid to perform an energy audit of the school's remaining six buildings.

Harvard’s audit team is a great example of collaboration between Harvard departments. The technical staff is comprised of members from Facilities Maintenance Operations, including Kevin Sheehan, Supervisor of Technical Services, John Ritz, an electrical technician, and Greg Kousidis, a building automation controls specialist. Tony Ragucci, Assistant Director for Maintenance Services, manages the program. The Office for Sustainability, including Kevin Bright, Project Coordinator, Andrea Ruedy Trimble, Program Manager, and Nathan Gauthier, Assistant Director, aid in the inspections of buildings, perform critical energy analyses and draft findings.

The audits meet or exceed all requirements of the ASHRAE Level II audit standard. Each energy-saving recommendation is supported with complete financial payback analysis and projected GHG reductions.

The energy analysis of the HDS campus identified 88 potential low or no-cost energy conservation measures (ECMs) that were projected to save the school $109,111 annually. In total, these 88 recommendations were estimated to pay back their initial investments in 1.71 years, avoid 270 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions, and reduce HDS’ overall greenhouse gas footprint by 21% when compared to 2006 levels.

Of the ECMs, installation of additional heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) controls provided the highest opportunity for savings, totaling $51,943 annually. Operations and policy recommendations, when compared to other opportunities, provided the best savings-to-investment ratio (SIR). With an implementation cost of $2,340, these eleven operations/policy recommendations were calculated to save HDS $16,509 annually.

Following the success of the HDS audit, the Team was awarded the opportunity to audit Massachusetts Hall. The report for the Hall has been drafted and will be available in February 2010.