When a comprehensive energy efficiency upgrade is completed for the 82 buildings on three community college campuses in the San Mateo County Community College District (SMCCCD), the district will be the first in California to integrate building control, energy management and building analytics on a single platform.
The result of the upgrade by Council Lead Partner Schneider Electric and SMCCCD is expected to be "significant" energy savings and more operational efficiency, but it means even more to the district's administrators and 40,000 students.
"San Mateo County Community College is committed to being intelligent and intentional about resource use. We know that we can effectively protect the environment, maximize our utility savings and appropriately focus on maintaining affordable, high quality education to our community," commented Joe Fullerton, the district's Energy and Sustainability Manager.
"We're excited to partner with Schneider Electric on this project and to leverage their expertise to support the mission of the district," he added. "Together we can continue the critical work of engaging our campus community in our sustainability initiatives. This project is a fantastic example of how we are supporting 'living labs' and using all available resources to optimize the educational environment for our students and staff."
Nuts and bolts
The basics of the project are installation of utility metering technology, new user interfaces for both utility and building management and advanced analytics capabilities. Schneider Electric will update the district's building automation and control systems and its Building Analytics solution will allow for continuous real-time analysis of building systems to give facility managers guidance in ways to save energy and reduce costs. When the project is completed later this year, they will be able to constantly monitor and enhance the district's energy use performance from a single interface.
Schneider Electric is no stranger to working with education facilities. The company says it has created turnkey energy efficiency and capital improvement projects at hundreds of educational institutions.
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Doug Peeples is a Portland, Oregon-based writer specializing in technology and energy. Follow @smartccouncil on Twitter.
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