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West Virginia University’s Engineers Without Borders has completed its energy audit of the Student Recreation Center and put together a report of recommendations. However, the report has not been submitted to the Rec Center or Facilities Management.
Project leader Claire Miller said the report was submitted to Mridul Gautam, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, who helped secure a grant for the project.
The hold up, Gautam said, is due to waiting on a second report about rain water filtration at Coopers Rock from faculty advisor Lian-Shin Lin.
Both reports will be done "sometime soon," he said, and given to Facilities Management.
The project began with the Office of Sustainability and its director, Clement Solomon, who worked with the Office of Sponsored Programs to create the project.
It’s one of five funded by the Sustainable Renewable Energy Grants, Solomon said, adding he had spoken with Rec Center Associate Director Jeff Berryman in creating the project before it was passed to Facilities Management.
Though Berryman remembers an audit taking place a while back, no details of the audit or a report for the Rec Center were remembered.
The feasibility of recommendations from the report will be determined by Facilities Management. The group worked with Lisa Saurbon, engineering manager within Facilities Management.
"They went through and toured the Rec Center," Saurbon said. "It was obviously in cooperation with the Rec Center administration."
She was the liaison for the tour as well as to provide the group with steam and electrical usage data for the Rec Center.
"We tried to contact people (at the Rec Center), but mostly we worked with the Sustainability Office," Miller said. "We weren’t told to officially (submit the report). I assumed they would have us do that or they will."
Though Dave Taylor, director of the Rec Center, was unaware of the audit being done, said a similar energy audit was conducted by Siemens Building Technologies, Inc. earlier this year.
"We’ve been doing a lot of things since the Siemens report," he said. "We’ve been doing a lot of those recommendations."
The Rec Center is open to all suggestions on becoming more energy efficient, Taylor said, and the report contains recommendations set forth by Engineers Without Borders.
"We basically were an independent student organization conducting a similar audit," said Jared Crawford, vice president of Engineers Without Borders.
Because of its shape, Miller said there was concern over the Rec’s energy efficiency.
"That was kind of the goal, to make it as efficient as possible," she said.
Making changes, like monitoring the ventilation of the building, can generate about $300,000 a year in savings, Gautam said.
Engineers Without Borders is recommending the Rec Center insulate its hot water tanks and either install sensors or manually monitor the air usage and ventilation of the building.
"We had looked into other forms of energy saving, but for the most part, they weren’t viable," Crawford said.
For example, the group almost suggested using generators to power the exercise bicycles, but the costs of running and installing the generators were too great to create savings.
They also looked into utilizing solar energy at the Rec Center.
"With the climate of Morgantown, solar energy isn’t viable for something like the Rec," Crawford said.
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