University of California, Irvine Building Named Showcase Project, Receives Visit from DOE

NEWTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aircuity, the smart airside efficiency company, announced today that its customer, University of California, Irvine, is participating in the Department of Energy’s Better Business Challenge and its Natural Sciences II building has been highlighted as a Showcase Project. The university received praise from the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and his delegation during a recent visit to the campus.

“The UC Irvine team is really knocking it out of the park.”

President Obama’s Better Buildings Challenge was launched in 2011 and asks leaders of participating companies, universities, school districts and state and local governments to reduce the energy used across their building portfolios by 20 percent or more by 2020. The University of California, Irvine joined the challenge as one of the first to commit to the initiative when it went public. Based on the university’s “Smart Lab” Initiative, UC Irvine is currently on track to reduce its energy use by 20% in just two years. UC Irvine expects to further reduce their energy use another 20% by 2020, exceeding the president’s objective by 100%.

The “Smart Lab” initiative was first launched in 2008 by UC Irvine and uses an integrated design approach, which challenges previously established best practices. Measures including centralized demand control ventilation, sharply reduced lighting power-density, efficient heat exhaust for equipment and the elimination of acoustic attenuators have been combined and provide the ability to achieve a 50% or higher reduction in laboratory energy use. One of the core principles of the Smart Lab program is that these improvements must never sacrifice occupant safety. The demand control ventilation system installed in each Smart Lab provides the dual benefit of substantial energy savings and a safe environment, making an airside energy reduction not only possible, but a critical component of the design. UC Irvine’s Smart Lab design can be deployed in new buildings or as a laboratory retrofit project, both yielding exceptional results.

Located on UC Irvine’s main campus, the 146,000 square foot Natural Sciences II building was retro-fitted utilizing the Smart Lab design guidelines. The university expects to achieve an outstanding 51% reduction in energy use in 2012 over the 2008 baseline, which would translate into an annual savings of $180,000. The project was selected as a “Showcase Project” based on the building’s significant energy savings and the recognition it has received in the community, among other criteria. Further detail about the Natural Sciences II building as well as information about the Smart Lab Initiative is featured on the Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Challenge website.

The U.S. Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency, David Danielson, and other officials from the Department of Energy recently visited UC Irvine to learn more about the Natural Sciences II building and the Smart Lab Initiative. They received a tour of the facility and were educated on the technologies that UC Irvine has used to make their substantial gains in energy efficiency possible. Danielson praised the work that UC Irvine has done and the Smart Lab design and was quoted as saying, “The UC Irvine team is really knocking it out of the park.”

UC Irvine is committed to educating universities within the UC system on the Smart Lab Initiative as well as collaborating with other institutions. UC Irvine will be holding a pre-conference training session entitled, “Safely Cut Your Laboratory Energy Use in Half” at the Labs21 Conference. The session will be held on October 1^st from 1pm – 5pm and features a panel of five experienced specialists, engineers and administrators from the university. For more information on the workshop please visit the Labs21 2012 Annual Conference website.

About Aircuity

Aircuity is the smart airside efficiency company providing building owners with sustained energy savings through its intelligent measurement solutions. By combining real-time sensing and continuous analysis of indoor environments, the company has helped commercial, institutional and lab building owners lower operating costs, improve safety and become more energy efficient. Founded in 2000 and headquartered in Newton, MA, Aircuity’s solutions have benefitted organizations such as the University of Pennsylvania, Eli Lilly, Masdar City, the Bank of America Tower and the University of California-Irvine. For additional information on the company and its solutions, please visit: http://www.aircuity.com.

About the University of California, Irvine

Founded in 1965, UC IRVINE is a top-ranked university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Led by Chancellor Michael Drake since 2005, UC IRVINE is among the most dynamic campuses in the University of California system, with nearly 28,000 undergraduate and graduate students, 1,100 faculty and 9,000 staff. Orange County’s largest employer, UC IRVINE contributes an annual economic impact of $4.2 billion. For more information on UC IRVINE, visit: www.UCIrvine.edu