enough to meet campus cooling needs. (The plant also delivers river water for campus irrigation through its underground piping system.)

As these upgrades were in the works, the U of C also committed to design all new buildings per LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) green building standards. (The campus’s first LEED-certified facility was the new Child Development Centre – another capital expansion project – which, when opened in 2007, was the largest LEED Platinum building in Canada and one of the first such buildings constructed in a cold-weather climate.) Existing buildings are also getting energy-efficient retrofits as funds become available.

The Bottom Line

When it begins serving the campus
in March 2011, the University of Calgary’s
new cogeneration system will return
roughly 25 percent of its initial cost to
university coffers each year through
energy savings, while reducing carbon
emissions 43 percent below 1990 levels.
Through a combination of “little and big
steps” – conservation, on-site power and
heat generation, carbon emissions control
and innovative project management and
delivery – the University of Calgary is
already well on its way to meeting the
energy and sustainability needs of its
growing campus.

Tom Phelps, PE, P.Eng., is a principal at Stantec, where he is responsible for development and elivery of district energy and cogeneration projects, especially in campus environments. He has served as project manager for central utilities upgrades at the University of Calgary since 2006. Phelps has 33 years’ experience in consulting engineering, including 15 years with Stantec and three years working in alternative energy research and development. Active in ASHRAE and IDEA, Phelps served as technical chair for IDEA’s 2010 Campus Energy Conference. He may be contacted at tom.phelps@stantec.com.