College of the Atlantic
OP-5: Building Energy Consumption

The college's sustainability director started work in September 2005 and began using the Clean Air-Cool Planet Carbon Calculator in 2006. 2005 was presented as a reasonable base year because of the availability of data.

In June 2016, College of the Atlantic launched the Community Energy Center (CEC), which is specifically designed to bridge student energy work with community participation and to extend energy education to a wider audience. The CEC seeks to foster continuity of the college’s many innovative student energy projects. These projects benefit community members while building students’ real-world skills. The CEC is the center of efforts to cultivate relationships between students and the community. The CEC welcomes partner organizations and individuals interested in collaboration, as shown through projects such as Solar for Businesses and Farms, Community Solar Farm Analysis, Electric Vehicle Connectivity, and Home Energy Audits with Air Sealing. Maine’s tourism industry provides a unique platform to showcase such community engagement. The CEC’s proximity to Acadia provides a direct link to this extensive tourism industry as well as the opportunities for collaboration and projects entailed therein.

In 2017, COA contracted with Maine Controls to upgrade and overhaul the mechanical control systems in three of the campus’ largest buildings: The 56-bed residence Blair-Tyson, the Thomas S. Gates, Jr. Community Center, and the mixed-use dining hall, library, and administration building Kaelber Hall. This project which was completed near the end of 2017, includes upgrading thermostats to give occupants a level of individual control while maintaining central control over the heating systems thereby reducing energy losses through inefficiency. Buildings are set to occupied/unoccupied temperature standards, and thermostats and heating infrastructure are monitored centrally for efficiency and system health. Residents of Blair-Tyson report better control of the temperature inside the building and inside the dorm rooms specifically. Different temperature standards are implemented according to the season of the year. Electricity use in each building is monitored and centrally available, allowing for more detailed analysis of building energy consumption.

College of the Atlantic has a policy of purchasing LED lightbulbs when possible. Nearly half of the lights on campus are LED at the time of the survey at hand. When applicable, lightbulbs needing replacement are done so with LED bulbs. LED lighting is used in the Kathryn W. Davis Student Residences (opened in Sept. 2008). These residences house 51 students.

The Kathryn W. Davis Student Residences were sited to take advantage of natural sunlight and views of the Atlantic Ocean. From the booklet about them: "All six new student residences have ocean views and are oriented for optimum solar harvesting."

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COA made improvements to the George B. Dorr Museum of Natural History, specifically upgrading the lighting system in May 2018 by replacing all halogen bulbs in the museum gallery's track lighting fixtures with far more efficient and long-lasting LEDs. COA upgraded 70 bulbs in the museum's track light system, replacing 60 watt halogen bulbs with 7 watt LED bulbs. These lights are on approximately 1470 hours each year (7 hours per day, 5 days per week, for 42 weeks). In spring 2015, College of the Atlantic had energy audits performed for all buildings on campus, as well as for our off-site farm houses, barns, and outbuildings. Utilizing this information, and in conjunction with an inventory of heating system age for all buildings, we are working to prioritize which buildings are most in need of energy retrofitting. As we retrofit the leakiest buildings that contain the most inefficient or oldest heating systems, we are able to reduce our heating demand, enabling the purchase of smaller, more efficient heating systems going forward. Built in 1895, the granite stone, 13,000 square foot 'cottage' known as the Turrets was renovated in 2013 by replacing 99 old, leaky single pane windows with new thermopane (double glazed) windows. Air sealing dramatically tightened the building. Before and after renovation blower door tests found a 49% reduction in air infiltration. This improvement saved 1400 gallons of heating oil during the 2013-2014 winter. Another old ocean front cottage known as Deering was renovated in 2008 and hooked into the central wood pellet boiler system that provides both heat and hot water to the Kathryn W. Davis Student Residences.

For the question above about Grid Purchased Electricity Source-to-Site ratio we used: http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy07osti/38617.pdf According to this governmental document our source-to-site ratio should be 0.112 for electricity and 1.56 for heating. However, the calculator forces us to use 3.14.