Hanley Sustainability Institute

By Mark Gokavi

On the same evening the University of Dayton men’s basketball team clinched the outright Atlantic 10 regular season title with a win over Davidson, UD president Eric Spina raised the Dayton Power and Light Savings Champion trophy.

The trophy, and a giant check presented at an event earlier Feb. 28, were in recognition of the university’s $1.2 million in energy rebates this past decade.

Dayton Power and Light “has a longstanding, great relationship with the University of Dayton, serving the community and looking at future needs,” Vince Parisi, Dayton Power and Light president, said during that day’s first presentation.

“I want to say thank you to Dr. (Eric) Spina, to (executive vice president) Andy Horner, to (energy utilization and environmental sustainability executive director) Steve Kendig, for the focus on the projects throughout the campus that’s really been improving the environment (and) building a culture of sustainability with the faculty, with the staff and with the students.”

Early in the second half of UD’s 82-67 victory, Rudy joined Kendig, Horner, Parisi, Spina and Dayton Power and Light vice president Tom Raga as the gray power plug-shaped trophy was presented.

“At UD, for a number of years now, in part driven by our students, frankly, in part by our faculty and staff, sustainability and certainly energy efficiency and energy conservation have been really important to us,” Spina said during the check presentation. “From the UD perspective, there’s no one person, no one group” who gets all the credit.

Spina cited Kendig and the facilities management team, Horner, operations management and the Hanley Sustainability Institute as being among those committed to the cause.

UD’s energy efficiency and renewable energy manager, Matthew Worsham, said the two biggest savings came from 121 lighting projects and six retro-commissioning projects which improved existing buildings’ energy performance.

The lighting projects saved 6,388,694 kWh for $523,549 in rebates. The retro-commissioning projects saved 5,017,976 kWH for $457,997 in rebates. Other savings came from 13 major renovations, five chiller projects, smart thermostats, nine HVAC projects and nine variable frequency drive (VFD) projects. The total of 14,674,458 kWh saved meant rebates of $1,242,533.

Worsham said many of the projects were led by Kendig and himself with facilities management, maintenance, David Schmidt’s planning and construction group, and engineering professor Kevin Hallinan, with help from students from the Industrial Assessment Center in the School of Engineering and HSI’s campus energy team, among others.

"This is a clear demonstration of the value of Ohio's Energy Efficiency Resource Standard. We have really enjoyed working with DP and L and their partners to develop and implement lucrative energy-saving projects, and the environmental impact speaks for itself,” Worsham said. “It's been very exciting to watch our rebate totals grow by over $700,000 in the last three years.

“At the time we got our $500,000 check, we said we would get to $1 million, and we're well on our way to $1.5 million now.”

For more sustainability news and information, visit HSI’s news blog, the Hanley Sustainability Institute website and the Sustainability Program website.