Greening MIT

Continued from page 4

Doing More

All these projects are just a sampling of the energy efficiency work going on at MIT. Professors such as Harvey Michaels, an energy efficiency scientist in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, are researching effective approaches to government policy. Samouhos is working with Neal Gershenfeld, the director of MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms, to develop networks that can collect data less expensively than the control systems in large buildings--and in even finer detail. For example, every lightbulb in a building could be monitored separately. They're also developing algorithms to use this information to do such things as alert building managers if heating systems are, as Samouhos puts it, "digressing in their behavior." The next step is to develop software that helps people decide what to do with the information. "I can't just say, Your chiller's not working," Samouhos says. "I have to say, Your chiller is wasting $100 a day, and the return on investment for you to get a service manager is x."

For all the activity on campus, however, many people think there should be more. "I don't think we've seen anywhere close to what we should see in terms of investment," says Jason Jay, a Sloan doctoral student and a member of the Campus Energy Task Force. He points out that the facilities department identified $1 billion worth of capital renewal projects that have been postponed, many of which could have an impact on energy efficiency. And so far only $2 million has been allocated toward the $14 million worth of energy-saving projects that the Sloan group helped identify. Money is scarce, especially in the current economic climate. A quarter of that $2 million came from discretionary funds--and no discretionary funds are available this year, according to Theresa Stone.

The current approach to raising money for efficiency projects is to ask alumni and other donors. But Jay would like to see MIT seek out alternative funding as well. Even in this economy, he says, many banks, for example, are willing to provide loans for energy efficiency projects, because their results are so reliable.

Such financing could allow MIT "to get the boring stuff done, like repairing steam traps and putting in fluorescent lighting," Jay says. "Then we can turn our attention to the interesting and exciting stuff." He'd like to see MIT start taking technologies out of the lab and applying them on campus, both as a learning tool for students and as a source of inspiration to green architects. "It would allow MIT to be a demonstration site and a sort of beacon for the rest of the world for what energy efficiency leadership looks like," he says.

He may soon be getting his wish, at least in part, when building space on the north side of campus is transformed into the headquarters of the MIT-Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy Systems. "They're going to renovate that building and make it a showcase for energy efficiency," says Glicksman. The idea is to make it a proving ground for new technologies, and to demonstrate what works.

In the end, beyond saving money, that's what all the energy efficiency projects at MIT are supposed to do.