» Main Campus Retrofits

This chapter will provide detailed information regarding current electricity consumption in three main campus buildings as well as a lighting retrofit proposal which includes the following:

Energy savings in kWh
Cost-benefit analysis
Environmental Impacts: equivalent carbon emissions

Retrofitting light fixtures in these buildings can be relatively inexpensive when compared to the amount of savings they would generate. Currently, in 2014 the university spent $87,158 on electricity in Demille, Smith and Roosevelt Halls. Of this, $23,500 was spent on lighting. By performing the recommended retrofits, the university has the potential to save over $8,300 a year in these three buildings alone. Installing new fixtures in these buildings could act as a pilot program and reflects future potential savings that could be achieved through the implementation of this lighting retrofit in other buildings on the university’s campus.

Read more recommendations for Chapman's main campus in Chapter 3 of the audit, written by Nicolas Lapointe.

Energy vs. Lighting Costs
Carbon Dioxide Emissions

Replacing exitsing 28W fluorescent T8 fixtures with 18W LED T8 fixtures from ELEDLights is one way to conserve energy and reduce costs. This would result in a 35.7% energy reduction, a savings of 61,000 kWh per year and over $8,380 from DeMille, Smith and Roosevelt Halls alone. The figure below displays these energy and cost savings, separated by season.

Figure 1. Total 2014 winter and summer energy costs vs. total 2014 summer and winter lighting costs per building. Calculated using avg. summer cost of $0.19024/kWh and winter cost of $0.10636/kWh.
According to the EPA, one kWh of electricity has been calculated as equivalent to the emission of 6.89551 x 10^-4metrics tons of CO₂. Therefore it can be calculated that the total CO₂ emissions for DeMille, Smith and Roosevelt Halls is 436 metric tons of CO₂, equivalent to the emissions from 49,144 gallons of gasoline. The figure below displays the portion of total emissions that can be attributed to lighting.