Opportunities for Laboratory Energy Conservation
There are large, untapped energy savings opportunities in university lab buildings. Strategies to reduce energy in labs include behavioral change strategies and technical opportunities.
Behavioral Change Strategies
Behavioral change opportunities abound in the university laboratory setting. The options range from sharing research space; locating equipment like refrigerators centrally; recycling within the lab and many others. These options all have energy, cost and space implications. The enormous energy intensity of the fume hood made it a logical place for the Harvard Green Campus Initiative to start their investigation. Addressing user management of fume hoods is not new, but can prove to be an effective way to save energy, money and increase user safety.
See related case study.
Technical Opportunities
Technical opportunities include heat recovery, user-based controls, variable air volume, low-flow fume hoods, night set-backs on ventilation and light when the building is not in used or only marginally used, and the installation of central building management system (BMS) to control all systems.
See related case study.