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Education news and issues in the Ozarks.

MSU’s 2014 Sustainability Year in Review

Simone Cook
/
KSMU

With the holidays come extended breaks from work for several education employees, including those at Missouri State University. It’s also a time when officials will make a concerted effort toward limited energy usage when so many facilities and operations are not in use.

Over the past year, some of MSU’s sustainability efforts have likely gone unnoticed. For instance, in the form of extending the school’s underground chilled water loop to new facilities and preparing the loop to connect to future buildings.

President Clif Smart says the practice has saved the university enormous energy costs over the past 15 years. In 2014, it was initiated when installing the new soccer and field hockey complexes.

“Looking ahead, knowing that there’s an occupational therapy building there [Across the street from the field hockey complex], we put in the infrastructure to connect that building to the chilled water loop, building it under the field hockey field, so that we didn’t have to tear it up a year after building it to connect. And so it’s that kind of foresight that we plan,” Smart said.

Sunvilla Towers will soon go on the chilled water loop, and the library was recently connected to the service.

“That’s the biggest thing we do. May not be the most noticeable, but that’s the biggest thing we do to bring our electricity costs and consumption down.”

Additionally, simply replacing the windows at Pummel Hall is expected to generate an energy savings, as will various other planned renovations.

“We hope if the legislature passes the general revenue bonding to allow us to renovate Hill and Ellis Hall, there will be enormous potential energy savings there. We’re still using the original equipment in Ellis that went in in 1959 – single-paned glass – we’re hemorrhaging heating and air through that building.”

Missouri State University has also signed on to Springfield City Utilities’ Solar Rider program, purchasing 200 kW, the maximum it can, of solar power. Smart admits that while it’s more expensive in the short term, the school is locked into a price for 20 years, which he believes could less expensive than burning fossil fuels in the long-term.

“The other piece of that is this is the most efficient way to do it. If we put solar panels on top of the library, on top of Pummel, it sometimes takes 40 to 50 years to recoup the cost in terms of energy saving and it produces very little power for us. So this [Solar Rider] produces significant power for us at an affordable price.”

But more can be done, he says, noting that 200 kW of solar power equates to just 1 percent of Missouri State’s energy needs. Smart hopes City Utilities will continue to buy and sell more solar power, and MSU has made known its desire to purchase more renewable energy if CU doesn’t sell all of its available power.

Additional energy savings measures included consolidating summer class locations to fewer buildings and replacing existing lights with LEDs, which was just completed along the underpass below Grand St.

MSU students are also working to increase sustainability. This year featured the launch of ZipCar, a ride-sharing program launched by the Student Government Association, and the installation of two solar-powered tables by Students for a Sustainable Future.

Hear past conversations with President Clif Smart here as part of our monthly program Engaging the Community.