SUNY Sullivan Community College

Background

Energy efficiency has been a cornerstone of decision-making at SUNY Sullivan since 2001, when the campus became the site of one of SUNY’s first facilities to use geothermal HVAC with the installation of a 500-ton geothermal heating and cooling system. This produces an estimated 85% of the campus’s heating and cooling needs.

In addition, SUNY Sullivan has a solar farm on campus through a fixed-rate 20-year power-purchase agreement (PPA) that supplies 75% of the campus’ electricity needs. That electricity is also powering ground-source heat pumps.

But SUNY Sullivan’s heat pumps and four hot-water boilers were failing by 2020. Maintenance staff were spending up to 50% of their time attempting to fix decades-old boilers and heat pumps where parts were no longer available. With infrastructure relying on band-aids, some staff and faculty were working in buildings with inadequate heating, with temperatures in some offices and classrooms nearing the low 50°F range during the winter months.

Back in 2001, students had no air conditioning, an increasing necessity in dealing with extreme heat conditions associated with the changing climate. Without air conditioning, building users would open windows and doors to ventilate and cool spaces, which would throw buildings’ heating systems off balance. Eventually the windows became leaky and were subsequently screwed shut and caulked. Even then, the single-pane windows were insufficient to maintain interior temperatures, allowing too much heat to come in during the summers and cold during the winters.

Fluorescent lighting across campus flickered. Maintenance workers were spending a lot of time replacing the bulbs. “If rooms are cold and windows are cold and lights in the hallway are flickering, student retention is going to fall,” said Larry Reeger, professor and sustainability coordinator. “I felt strongly that the College would have to close if we couldn’t heat and cool the space properly.”

The upshot is that the HVAC systems at SUNY Sullivan were failing.

Thus, in 2020, the College commissioned a comprehensive energy audit of the campus, in cooperation with Sullivan County and with the support of the New York Power Authority (NYPA) and NYSERDA.

Institutional Goals

SUNY Sullivan works to align campus-wide projects to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (U.N. SDGs). SUNY Sullivan is also a member of the University Global Coalition (UGC), which was founded in 2019 as a global platform of universities and higher education institutions committed to advancing the U.N. SDGs both locally and globally through teaching, research, operations, and partnerships.

Funding and Financing

SUNY Sullivan received funding from NYSERDA via their FlexTech program with support from Sullivan County legislatures and County Manager’s office to start with an ASHRAE Level II energy audit that explored a set of energy conservation measures to consider. With this arrangement, NYSERDA covered half the cost of the audit. At this time, FlexTech would cover 100% of audit costs if SUNY Sullivan implemented measures recommended from the audit.

Implementation costs were covered through American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding, as well as through partnerships with NYPA, the College, and SUNY.

Solutions Explored

An ASHRAE Level II energy audit identified more than 19 opportunities for energy efficiency improvements. SUNY Sullivan formed an integrated design team with Sullivan County, NYPA, NYSERDA, LaBella Associates, and others, to address building operations and management.

An integrated design team is a group of diverse professionals and stakeholders involved in the planning, design, and construction of a building or infrastructure project. This team typically includes architects, engineers, the building owner, contractors, subcontractors, occupants, and various specialists such as environmental consultants or systems engineers.

Funding from SUNY’s Office for Capital Facilities Community College Capital Program was only available for some projects and covered 50% of eligible project costs. The integrated design team discussed a cost-benefit analysis along with considerations related to overall facilities operations, which led to selecting projects that fit the College’s priorities. For example, energy-recovery ventilation did not have a great return on investment, but controlling poor air circulation during and after the pandemic was a priority.

Solutions Implemented

SUNY Sullivan renewed its commitment to sustainability through a $9.8 million energy efficiency and facilities upgrade project that will bring significant cost savings to Sullivan County and cement the College’s status as a model green campus in New York State.

The energy efficiency project—which includes replacing the campus’s failing 22-year-old boilers and 130 geothermal heat pumps, as well as installing high-efficiency windows, LED lighting, and other energy-saving upgrades to campus facilities—is being financed and implemented by NYPA, which will be reimbursed by Sullivan County with matching funding from New York State through SUNY’s Office for Capital Facilities Community College Capital Program.

The energy efficiency project addresses numerous recommendations from that audit, including replacing the four failed or failing hot water boilers with three new high-efficiency condensing boilers, as well as replacing 125 failing water-to-air and eight water-to-water heat pumps. Both projects were considered critical to day-to-day operation of the College.

Other energy efficiency improvements being implemented by NYPA, as recommended by the audit, include:

• Upgrading the 20-year-old HVAC system with controls, variable frequency drives, and high-efficiency boilers
• Replacing all energy recovery ventilators (ERVs)
• Replacing all fluorescent luminaries with LED equivalents
• Replacing original classroom windows with high-efficiency windows
• Upgrading the Culinary Arts classroom kitchen exhaust system with demand-based variable speed controls
• Replacing the College’s 52-year-old domestic electric resistance water heater with heat pump water heaters

Some additional co-benefits of these upgrades are contributing to the health and wellbeing of SUNY Sullivan students and staff beyond the obvious. Previously, the Culinary Arts classroom had old-fashioned gas boilers that ventilated without pause for 14 hours a day. Now, with variable speed controls, ventilators automatically turn on and off, and the space has better air quality and no more mold issues.

When complete, the project will result in significant energy and cost savings for Sullivan County, reducing annual greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 400 metric tons and strengthening SUNY Sullivan’s leadership in environmental sustainability and social responsibility in the Catskills and across higher education. The comprehensive upgrades are expected to generate more than $210,000 in annual energy and maintenance cost-savings.

The project also advances the goals laid out in the New York Power Authority’s BuildSmart 2025 program, which calls for 11 trillion British thermal units (TBtus) of on-site energy savings in buildings owned by New York State. The energy efficiency improvements directly support the goals of New York State’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act , which calls for greenhouse gas emissions from buildings to be reduced by 40 percent by the year 2030.

Timeline

• January 2020—initial project meeting with NYPA
• June 2020—LaBella Associates performs ASHRAE Level II audit, sponsored by NYSERDA FlexTech program and Sullivan County Legislators
• December 2020—Reeger sends letter to County Commissioners appealing for funding to upgrade HVAC systems
• Early 2021—NYPA agrees to finance project, with County paying for 50% repayment and match from SUNY Office for Capital Facilities Community College Capital Program will when the project is complete; LaBella Associates develops design-build solution
• Summer 2021—boiler installation begins
• Late 2023—boiler installation project is completed

Budget