Discipline: Ecology Environmental and Earth Sciences
Subcategory: Ecology
Session: 2
Malikia Saffore - Harris-Stowe State University
Co-Author(s): Ikram Mohamed, Harris-Stowe State University ,Saint Louis, MO, Tiffany Hopkins, Harris-Stowe State University , Saint Louis, MO, Sterling Burton,Harris-Stowe State University , Saint Louis, MO, and David Bogler, PhD, Harris-Stowe State University ,Saint Louis, MO
Energy conservation can be a great thing to consider when you may want to use resources in a more sustainable manner. [Effective in 2017, privately owned buildings and municipal buildings in St. Louis that are 50,000 square feet or more are required to be benchmarked, and owners must disclose annual energy and water consumption.] Last semester the amount of energy that was being used by the largest buildings (over 50,000 square feet) on campus was measured. It was hypothesized that the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) building conserved more energy than the others on campus. This experiment was done by collecting the utility bills from the buildings for a one year period and entering information into the Energy Star Portfolio Manager to help calculate the energy usage for each building. Our hypothesis was found to be incorrect. It was found that our LEED certified building uses more energy than the others on campus while one of the oldest buildings on campus conserved more energy than the rest. This result focuses attention on ways to improve energy efficiency in the LEED certified building, and other buildings as well. It was found that an older building can be made more efficient by adding the proper advancements such as new ventilation and adding motion sensors lights. One needs to look at other parameters as well such as the occupancy. For example the LEED certified building it is open 5 days a week in the summer while the oldest building is open for 4 .In the future we will look in more detail to these aspects .
Funder Acknowledgement(s): Minorities Science and Engineering Improvement Program (MSEIP) grant from Department of Education
Faculty Advisor: David Bogler, PhD, boglerd@hssu.edu
Role: I looked through the utility bills to see how much energy was used and I also researched information to find out how to make buildings to be more sustainable.