Georgia Institute of Technology
OP-7: Building Energy Consumption

Georgia Tech was an early adopter of LEED Certification. The Georgia Tech College of Management was the 13th building in the US to be LEED certified. In 2003, when the LEED Certification process was estimated to add 10% to the cost of a building, we designed 5 new buildings to LEED standards but certified only one of them because of the cost. We chose LEED certification design standards because we wanted our Technology Square project to be "a tangible symbol of our educating leaders for the increasing complex and global economy." Georgia Tech's campus now has approximately 2,000,000 gsf of LEED certified building space on it, including the largest university residence hall in the world to attain LEED EB O&M Gold Certification. Georgia Tech currently has 5,014,390 gsf of building space on our campus that is LEED Registerd, LEED Certified, or retrofit for energy efficiency at the level of LEED certification. Located in the US SE region, we air condition or heat buildings year round. Being in downtown Atlanta, an EPA non-attainment zone, we are unable to use co-generation, which would reduce our emissions and which many of our peers have been able to move to. Tech has implemented many energy conservation programs and more are planned. As a public, very high research university in the southeast, we heat and cool for our climate and our educational and research missions. Current efforts include metering each utility for each building so we can increase energy efficiency in them. Our MMBTU/sf is one half that of our peer, very high research universities. Research requires 2-4 times the energy of a normal classroom. Over 40% of our undergraduate students do hands on research. Our PhD & Masters enrollment has grown 49 and 63% over the last decade. Tech is the third highest producer of patents in the state, 80% of these patents include the name of at least one student. Many of these patents are related to sustainability. Georgia’s humid climate requires heating /cooling year round, especially in labs where research requires controlled settings.