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University Buildings Work Smarter, Not Harder

Smart building technology is pushing higher education institutions into a more sustainable future.

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Alexandra Frost is a Cincinnati-based freelance journalist, content marketing writer, copywriter and editor published in The Washington Post, Glamour, Shape, Today’s Parent, Reader’s Digest, Parents, Women’s Health and Insider.

If you’re ever at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, look up. There, you’ll see wind turbines and solar panels. Look down, and you may notice a commercial energy storage system in an underground garage of the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences. You’ve found yourself on a smart campus working toward some serious sustainability goals.

The smart building project involved rooftop solar panels and energy storage, according to Kenneth Loparo, Arthur L. Parker professor emeritus in the Case School of Engineering. It included “integrating those units with the building energy management system and examining how to dynamically manage solar power — which is really an uncontrollable resource — to meet the energy needs of the building and to support distribution system operations,” he says. And that’s just one project.

“We have a whole parade of building energy management systems across the campus, and each of them requires a different approach to interfacing, using a communication protocol such as BACnet,” Loparo says. He explains that universities looking to build this type of campus energy infrastructure with an eye toward sustainability goals need more than just the gear and the tech know-how.

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“Because these things are occurring at universities, they need to have an educational center,” he says. “It’s about creating energy efficiency and sustainable programs that also engage students and provide them with an opportunity to learn more about energy delivery, energy usage and energy management.”

Loparo adds that universities are considering ways to deploy Internet of Things (IoT) devices, such as sensors and data aggregators, to collect data from around campus and use it to analyze and fine-tune building performance.

Buildings Must Have the Foundation to Support Smart Technology

At the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, sensors detect rainwater’s path through campus in an effort to improve on-campus sustainability and help the city with water-related issues. The process isn’t necessarily quick. Planning, preparing and purchasing sensors took six months, and research and architecture planning took eight, says Tammie K. Brown, a business analyst at Georgia Tech.

The university settled on sensors with LoRaWAN technology — short for long-range WAN — “which uses 868-megahertz free radio frequencies instead of Wi-Fi,” Brown says. “This allows them to have low energy consumption.”

Another key is having the support staff and systems in place to maintain specialized new technology before investing in it.

Loparo adds that IoT is really what makes these buildings work.

“You overlay a communication network both within the building, to allow various sensors and actuators and control elements to communicate with each other, and across buildings, to allow the buildings to communicate and carry out energy-based transactions,” he says. “IoT is about the connection of physical devices with a communication overlay — allowing data and information commands to flow across that network bidirectionally — to improve the performance of a single entity and a collection of connected entities simultaneously.”

Differentiate Between Smart and Sustainable Building Technologies

So, what makes a higher ed building sustainable, or even smart? That depends on who you ask.

“IoT has become a blanket term that everybody wants to say they’re capable of, but are they solving a particular problem?” asks Robert Durning, CEO at GreenerU, a Boston-area design-build climate action firm specializing in education. He notes that it’s key to use the data collected from IoT devices in a way that promotes sustainability.

James Stephens, interim vice president of infrastructure and sustainability at Georgia Tech, warns against getting caught up in technology for the sake of “pretty pictures and analytics.”

“That system may not be any more accurate or better-performing. In fact, it could even be a worse-performing system,” he says, advising institutions not to ignore more traditional sustainability practices in favor of shiny new tech.

“I could have an automated building with hundreds of IoT sensors that are web-connected to the other components, but what happens if the internet goes down?” he says. “And even if you have all those sensors, how you connect those sensors to the rest of the building is really important,” adding that some are for telling other parts of the system what to do; for example, opening a valve to make it cooler or warmer.

University Sustainability Projects Attract Thinkers of the Future

Sometimes it’s not just the academic buildings pushing for sustainability but collaborations with nearby businesses that attract the best thinkers graduating from higher ed institutions. That’s what Jeremy Slater, vice president of capital projects and facilities for Purdue Research Foundation, has been working on in a 400-acre community close to the university’s campus.

“The Discovery Park District is an innovation district — a work-live-play community with an inclusion of STEM and research,” he says. The district is home to walkable residential developments, technology company headquarters, university buildings dedicated to science and sustainability research, and more. Through partnerships and collaborations with organizations ranging from Fortune 100 companies to tech startups, the district aims to advance innovation while providing meaningful experiences for Purdue University students. Sustainability is a major factor in whether a project at the district is viewed as successful, Slater says.

45%

The percentage of students who considered environmental sustainability in their college enrollment decision

Source: insidehighered.com, “Actions and Hopes of the Sustainability-Focused Student,” Jan. 2, 2023

This extends to the buildings where the projects are taking place. Students and staff can turn lights on and off, adjust heating and cooling settings, and unlock doors with their cellphones.

“I look at the access to student talent like those in athletics,” Slater says. “Companies are looking to get the top talent from universities before students graduate, so they are tapping into that pipeline and hanging their flag adjacent to campus to easily have interns or co-ops start training with these companies well before they graduate.”

Case Western Reserve’s Loparo emphasizes the connection to student engagement as the heart of these types of projects.

“Data access opens up a new world for them because this is not simulated data,” he says. “This is real stuff, and it’s messy and noisy, so it has all of the things that they need to understand when they move from a classroom or laboratory into the real world.”

It's Alive!

Georgia Tech’s Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design is the first in Georgia to earn Living Building Challenge certification through the International Living Future Institute. Jennifer Chirico, associate vice president of sustainability for the university, says achieving the certification is “more challenging” than obtaining a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design designation.

“We have 28 LEED buildings on our campus, which is incredible progress. But the Living Building goes above and beyond, creating even more positive impacts and supporting our local community,” Chirico says.

The Kendeda Building is net positive in energy and water. A rooftop photovoltaic canopy not only captures energy, but it also collects rainwater and acts as a shade on the south and west sides of the building, which tend to receive more solar gain. Sensors monitor and regulate energy use from the building’s mechanical systems, ultimately allowing for smaller HVAC systems and higher indoor air temperatures without sacrificing comfort.

Photo courtesy Gregg Willett