FY12 Green Champions Winners
Change Agent Award
Small Group
NIH - Electric Vehicle Charging Station (110V)
· Bill Strine, Electrical Engineer Technician, Division of Property Management, Office of Research Facilities
· Captain Jamie Natour, Electrical Engineer, Division of Property Management, Office of Research Facilities
Ms. Juli Anne Callis, (NIH Federal Credit Union) initiated a trial project at NIH for employees to charge personal Electric Vehicles using lower cost 20amp 110volt circuits paid for by NIHFCU. This comes at "no cost" to NIH and is a pilot project with 8 charging stations. These stations went live on June 25th, 2012 and as of January 30th, 2013 have enabled about 3,800 kilowatt hours of EV driving with over 20 EV’s and PHEV’s using the 8 stations. This is the equivalent of over 14,000 miles of travel without gasoline and has to-date saved over 600 gallons of gas, reducing CO2 and other emissions. This is a small, but significant part of the over 250,000,000 (250 million) miles driven in this country on domestically produced electricity and has saved over a supertanker of oil not used in the last several years.
Electronic Stewardship Award
Organization
NIH - Data Center Uninterruptable Power Supply
· Jeffrey Neilson, Building Manager/Engineer, ORF
· Wayne Smalls, Program Manager, ORF
· Warren Wills, Maintenance Engineer, ORF
In 2004, National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) 35,000 square foot campus Data Center’s Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS) system was unreliable, and many NIH and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) critical IT systems experienced outages. The system emitted 1.945 tons of carbon dioxide and consumed 54,000 gallons of fuel annually. The NIH Center for Information Technology (CIT) partnered with the NIH Office of Facilities (ORF) to replace NIH’s campus Data Center UPS system to provide high availability power to support NIH and HHS mission critical systems, improve energy efficiency, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. In June 2012, the system was replaced. The new system reduced its power consumption by nearly 50 percent; carbon footprint by 55 percent; and diesel consumption by 96 percent. It also reduced the amount of related hazardous waste.
FY12 Green Champions
Honorable Mention Winners
Sustainable Acquisitions Award
Organization
NIH – Freezer Initiative
· Susan Hinton, Sustainability Manager, Office of Research Facilities
· Gregar Odegaarden, Division of Facilities Planning, Office of Research Facilities
· Leo Gumapas, Green House Gas Manager, Division of Environmental Protection, Office of Research Facilities
The NIH Office of Research Facilities (ORF) launched the NIH Freezer Initiative to support the NIH intramural research program. The primary goal of the initiative aims to reduce the energy consumption of Ultra Low Temperature (ULT) freezers by consolidating freezer contents, and replacing aging NIH ULT freezers with new, large capacity, energy efficient freezers. A study was performed to establish an energy benchmark for ULT freezers and to develop a prioritization model to replace the most inefficient ULT Freezers operating in NIH laboratories. A Request for Proposal was drafted using energy efficiency as a technical specification for the procurement for ULT freezers. NIH negotiated a bulk buy that included extended warranties, freezer racks, 2-year preventative maintenance, and delivery, which resulted in 24% discount rate. Phase one of the NIH Freezer Initiative resulted in the purchase of 70 new energy efficient ULT freezers, and the retirement of 98 old, energy inefficient ULT freezers. The NIH reduced its annual electricity consumption 591 megawatt-hours (MWh), which translated to an approximate saving of $65,000 and reducing greenhouse gases by 255.3 metric tons.