Christmas comes but once a year, and when it does, it’s only natural that Campus Construction Update’s thoughts would turn to temperature sensors and steam-flow meters.

Also, of course, our thoughts go to that olde �ֲ���ý holiday tradition called “curtailment.” It’s a word that could apply to a lot of things, but at �ֲ���ý in winter it refers to the energy-saving practice of lowering the heat in buildings that won’t be occupied during the holiday break — which is to say, most of them.

John Begin of Damon Mechanical Services works on a steam flow meter at Cheney House on Nov. 15, 2016. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

“Historically, we’ve sent two or three mechanics out to manually set back every building,” says John Rasmussen, the college’s energy manager. “That takes three days.” And it takes another three days to turn all those thermostats back up again as the break draws to a close.

“So you’re losing six days of energy savings,” Rasmussen says.

But a new day is dawning for curtailment — and for managing heat generally in buildings across the �ֲ���ý campus, thanks to a new campus-wide network that centralizes heating system control and performance monitoring through a Facility Services website.

The system allows staff to remotely read conditions and control heat in some 70 �ֲ���ý buildings, including 52 that received new sensors and controls during a major installation campaign that ended in late November. Most structures in the network are warmed either by the central steam plant or by natural gas; out of the loop are some of the smaller oil-heated wood-framed houses.

Several contractors — including Maine Controls of Portland, Damon Mechanical Services of Auburn, and Mountain View Electric of Lewiston — undertook installation of the new hardware. Included were sensors for interior temperatures and heating plant conditions; heating controls; and Maine Controls’ specialty, a computerized terminal in each building that serves as a sort of digital switchboard for data going out and commands coming in.

A new steam flow meter in Libbey Forum. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Facility Services’ other partners in the project are more surprising. Sustainability Manager Tom Twist has brought �ֲ���ý into an informal consortium with a few other schools to code an open-source interface to serve as a sort of “universal translator” for different HVAC manufacturers’ proprietary software.

And Rasmussen is working with Lecturer in Geology Raj Saha and Saha’s thesis student, Gabe Whitehead ’17, of Shaker Heights, Ohio, who have created a computer modeling program to generate a thermal profile for each campus building from energy consumption, indoor temperature, and outdoor temperature data.

“Our program goes through the large data set to determine physical parameters of the buildings, like how well the building is insulated, and possibly also resident behavior — are they opening up windows to regulate room temperatures?” explains Saha, whose expertise is in mathematical climate modeling. “Such information can be useful in determining how to optimize heat flow into the buildings and save energy.”

Newly commissioned is this digital heating control unit in the basement of Cheney House on Nov. 15, 2016. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Like a good screenplay, the campus-wide system works on so many levels. “Those capabilities of being able to remotely control and remotely sense what’s happening in the buildings is a huge advantage, as well as giving us significant energy and cost savings,” Rasmussen says.

After all, he says, “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.”

The system will save staff time and effort on routine hands-on tasks like curtailment, and will also warn Facility Services about heating equipment problems sooner, perhaps, than building occupants can.

But the highest beauty of the new network lies in the scope of the data it will ultimately provide, thanks in part to Saha and Whitehead. This analytical capability “essentially makes the invisible visible to us, and that’s really great,” says Tom Twist, �ֲ���ý’ sustainability manager.

“It’s a pretty fantastic thing. I think we’ll be able to find all sorts of low-hanging fruit in terms of energy efficiency measures.”

Temp agency: The brand-new high-tech thermostat at �ֲ���ý Communications Plaza on Dec. 6, 2016. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

A surprising number of variables can affect a building’s thermal behavior besides the performance of the HVAC system itself: factors like insulation and building envelope performance, solar gain, placement of thermostats, the heat-retaining qualities of radiators, even the hot water that circulates for bathing and washing throughout a large residential hall. And, of course, the residents’ activities.

The new system will enable Rasmussen to encourage conservation by giving campus offices an accounting of their energy use over a given period of time. “There have been studies that indicate that when people can see how much energy they’re using, they will respond,” he says.

“In the future, as we do more efficiency projects, we’ll have a baseline: ‘This is what it costs to run this building now, but if I make these improvements, this is what I’m estimating the savings will be.’ I’ll be able to document the savings.”

Steam from the central plant at the Cutten Maintenance Center heats 27 �ֲ���ý buildings totaling 1.1 million square feet. Until now, Rasmussen notes, �ֲ���ý steam pretty much lived a life of its own once it left the boilers at Cutten Maintenance Center and entered an underground world of concrete vaults and insulated pipes.

“We meter the steam leaving the plant,” he says, “but we don’t know where it goes. Now we’ll know where it’s going,” thanks to steam management technology made by British manufacturer Spirax Sarco and programmed for the �ֲ���ý network by JM Electrical of Lynnfield, Mass.

A lot of steam heat is wasted due to aging end-point equipment, as well as the lack of monitoring-and-control infrastructure. Some residences have worn pressure regulators and radiator valves that lead to overheating — which student residents try to relieve by opening the windows. Overheating of buildings, Rasmussen says, is a major source of wasted energy at �ֲ���ý.

Technicians pose for Campus Construction Update after completing the installation of remote heating controls at Libbey Forum on Nov. 16, 2016: from left, Aaron MacFawn of Maine Controls; John Begin of Damon Mechanical; and Mike Renk of JM Electrical. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

From building to building, all the parts of the heat-monitoring project are in place. “There’s some training and working out exactly how we want to get the data, collect the data, how we’re going to analyze it, that sort of thing,” he says. “But we’re already generating information that’s interesting and useful.”

Twist’s software consortium promises to help with the meta-analytical piece. It will address a problem common to institutions that operate many buildings: a disparate collection of energy-sensing and control units from a variety of manufacturers.

Actuators like this DuraDrive model in Libbey Forum allow Facility Services to remotely open and close heating-system valves. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

“Because the systems are proprietary, they don’t really talk to each other, and sometimes the software isn’t that great,” says Twist. “It’s software made by boiler manufacturers.” (Campus Construction Update can confirm that boilermakers and the effective handling of software can be mutually exclusive.)

In particular, Rasmussen says, HVAC manufacturers don’t design software for institutional energy management at the meta level. “I’m generating incredible amounts of data,” he says, but when it comes to collating that data, interpreting it and discerning trends from it, the equipment makers say, “That’s your problem, man.”

Aaron MacFawn of Maine Controls, at left, confers with �ֲ���ý energy manager John Rasmussen in the basement of Cheney House after the commissioning of remote heating controls and sensors on Nov. 15. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Of course, other companies do make the kind of data aggregator that Rasmussen needs — but it costs a lot, into six figures; and it often comes with restrictive licensing or servicing conditions.

So Twist and his counterparts at a few other small colleges are banding together to obtain open-source software that will harmonize data from different manufacturers’ logging systems. Writing the code “isn’t something that takes forever to do,” Twist says, “but every school has to reinvent the wheel, and that’s what we’re trying to prevent.”

And they hope ultimately to make it a public resource. “It’s cool because it’s addressing a major hole in the market,” he says. “People don’t want to pay exorbitant amounts for stuff that should be more accessible.”

Zonal hot water circulating pumps in the basement of �ֲ���ý Communications Plaza. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Speaking of fundage, the bill for the heating control network was roughly $300,000, divided evenly between the monitoring and control installations, Rasmussen says. A grant from the state Efficiency Maine program defrayed $150,000.

He adds that this project is part of a series of energy conservation measures that he has led since 2014 — including improvements to insulation, windows, and HVAC controls — and that have cost about $2.5 million.

The college administration and the Board of Trustees “have made a serious commitment,” he says. “We need to save energy, save money and save greenhouse gas emissions. We need to do this.”

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes your questions and comments about current, past, and future construction at �ֲ���ý. Write to dhubley@bates.edu, putting “Campus Construction” in the subject line. Or use the 21st-century commenting system below.

George Fiske ’19, Brent Feldman ’17, and Katharine Gaillard ’19 are shown up close and personal with a Canadian Solar PV module. (Tom Twist/�ֲ���ý College)

The irrepressible Campus Construction Update returns with a series of occasional reports on short-term facilities projects. Today: �ֲ���ý’ entry into solar electricity production.

“Renewable energy is a passion of mine,” Brent Feldman ’17 told Campus Construction Update soon after climbing down off the roof of the �ֲ���ý Coastal Center, aka Shortridge, in Phippsburg.

Feldman, who spent his summer as an intern for the solar industry’s national trade association, was now indulging that passion in a hands-on way as part of a �ֲ���ý group helping to install a solar photovoltaic array — �ֲ���ý’ first institutional PV installation — at the center on Oct. 19.

Two technicians from the New England firm led the installation of 12 PV modules at the center. Feldman and six other students spent the first day of their October recess three stories high, hooking up power cables and bolting down panels.

During the summer, ReVision had done preliminary work requiring professional expertise — installing mounting rails for the panels and making electrical connections into the building. That set the stage for the �ֲ���ý-ReVision collaboration.

Here’s a video by Daniel Stames ’17 of the installation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNqnCLEGye4

Oct. 19 was sunny, making the autumn foliage in Phippsburg a treat — and unseasonably warm, making the Shortridge rooftop a hot workplace. The students, all from the Northeast, worked with ReVision project manager Ashton Ireland in two shifts. Also on hand were �ֲ���ý sustainability manager Tom Twist and Laura Sewall, director of the �ֲ���ý–Morse Mountain Conservation Area, which administers the center.

The first team to don safety harnesses and go to the roof comprised Feldman; his classmates Ahmed Sheikh of Lewiston and Danny Stames of Morrisville, Vt.; and Hannah Slattery ’18 of Gilford, N.H. Going up second, for the glamour job of mounting the solar panels themselves, were Sophia Thayer ’18 of West Boothbay Harbor, Maine; George Fiske ’19 of West Hartford, Conn.; and Katharine Gaillard ’19 of Exeter, N.H.

While the second team stayed at ground level and steeled themselves for things to come with apples, Frosty’s doughnuts, and �ֲ���ý cookies, the first team connected cables and used torque wrenches to bolt down power optimizers — computer gizmos that, like a good coach, enable each solar panel to give its personal best.

With student teams high and low, preparation for the installation of solar photovoltaic panels on �ֲ���ý’ Coastal Research Center, aka Shortridge, is underway late in the morning of Oct. 19, 2016. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

(Without the optimizers, a weakened output from any panel — because, say, it’s blocked by a renegade blue tarp that blew off the neighbor’s 1967 Triumph motorcycle that he is planning to restore — lowers, by the same amount, the output of every other panel.)

With Twist hopping up and down the ladder to take pictures, Ireland took the second shift up to place the panels, made by Canadian Solar. This was an all-hands effort, as Sheikh, Feldman, and Slattery pulled ropes to hoist the sled-like arrangement that carried each panel up the ladder. Stames, meanwhile, piloted a drone to photograph the proceedings.

The roof pitch wasn’t extreme, but steep enough to keep Campus Construction Update on the ground. Ireland received each 48-pound panel at the top of the ladder — that is, for our height-averse readers, right at the edge of the roof — and carried it uphill to the rails, where he guided the �ֲ���ý students in placing and securing it. The work went surprisingly fast.

For Feldman, a double major in environmental studies and politics, the Shortridge adventure brought a needed dimension to his understanding of the renewable energy industry. As an intern for the Solar Energy Industries Association, Feldman had spent the summer in Washington, D.C., lobbying on Capitol Hill and researching solar policy and economics.

A box of Frosty’s doughnuts, apples, and a bowl of �ֲ���ý cookies were among the refreshments on hand for the solar installation project at �ֲ���ý’ Coastal Research Center at Shortridge. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

To his sophisticated grasp of the policy side — did you know that solar installation costs have declined 72 percent in the last decade, and 10 percent in the last year? — Feldman wanted to add a nuts-and-bolts grasp of the actual work involved.

“I wanted to get on a roof,” he said. “I wanted to get my hands dirty.”

The 3,000-watt array meets about half of the center’s electrical demand. ReVision designed the project to leave space for another dozen panels, so someday Shortridge may go 100 percent solar. �ֲ���ý’ sustainability office and the �ֲ���ý–Morse Mountain Conservation Area split the roughly $10,000 cost of the array.

Ahmed Sheikh ’19 and Brent Feldman ’19 are preparing to install power optimizers for the Shortridge solar-electric array. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

Halving Shortridge’s $1,200 annual electric bill will be very nice, but the real power of the project might be symbolic: demonstrating how easy it has become, both technically and financially, to go solar. And with more than 500 environmentally minded �ֲ���ý students and faculty passing through Shortridge annually, said Sewall, this research and meeting facility isn’t a bad venue for sending a message about the urgency of embracing renewable energy.

“For many people solar is an unknown technology,” says Twist. “The way people’s minds work, just seeing it in a place working is very helpful and comforting.”

A devotee of renewable energy, Twist wants to spread the word about the intrinsic elegance of today’s solar technology. “You just put it up and forget about it,” he says. “Generally the panels’ lifespan is about 45 years, and a lot of times they’ll outlast the roofing material that you put them on.”

The Shortridge project is not only �ֲ���ý’ debut as solar electricity producer, but also one of Maine’s rare instances of undertaking such a project as an educational encounter. As chief sustainability officer at his previous workplace, the Chewonki Foundation, Twist asked ReVision to work with students in a solar installation on a dorm.

A PV panel installation squad: from left, George Fiske ’19, Aston Ireland of ReVision Energy, Katharine Gaillard ’19, sustainability manager Tom Twist. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

He brought the firm back for Shortridge — and he and Sewall emphasized the value of the company’s willingness to bring students into the installation. Time is money, and ReVision’s educational commitment meant a longer site visit because of the need to instruct students and otherwise accommodate their participation. In the case of Shortridge, a normal morning’s work for the ReVision crew stretched well into afternoon.

“It’s my first time working with students,” said ReVision project manager Ashton Ireland, who has been with the company for a year. “It’s a lot of fun. They’re really eager to learn.”

The timing of the project is fortuitous, as Mainers continue to deliberate the pros and cons of the state’s net-metering regulations — the obligation of electrical utilities to pay the standard rate per kilowatt-hour to small electricity producers whose surplus power feeds the grid.

Net metering has made PV solar affordable for many homeowners and other small-scale operators. But detractors, including Maine Gov. Paul LePage, see it as a giveaway to the solar industry, and seek to dismantle net metering. That could bear directly on the ability of an institution like �ֲ���ý, which is just beginning a feasibility study of the topic, to meet its electrical need with solar.

ReVision Energy’s Ashton Ireland unloads a Canadian Solar PV panel from its sled. The modules weigh 44 pounds. (Doug Hubley/�ֲ���ý College)

“If we wanted to someday try to cover a large percentage of our electrical load, we don’t have enough roof space on campus to have panels to produce all that power,” Twist explains. So the college would need to build a solar farm on open land somewhere.

“That’s problematic if net metering goes away,” he explains, because any output that exceeds the campus demand would go out to the grid. So, financially, “the whole thing would be dependent on whether or not we would get credit for net metering.” (A Maine Public Utilities Commission for home solar installations is under review this fall.)

Can we talk? Campus Construction Update welcomes your questions and comments about current, past, future, and imaginary construction at �ֲ���ý. Write to dhubley@bates.edu, putting “Campus Construction” or “How can we miss you when you won’t go away?” in the subject line. Or use the 21st-century commenting system below.

NOTE TO READERS: The following article corrects an error in the printed monthly calendar, �ֲ���ý Invites You. The Nathan Lewis lecture takes place in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall at �ֲ���ý, not Dana Chemistry.

Nathan Lewis, a chemistry professor at the California Institute of Technology, gives a lecture about Earth’s energy resources at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 16, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall at �ֲ���ý College, 75 Russell St.

In a talk titled “Where in the World Will Our Energy Come From?” Lewis will offer insight into the use of energy resources and the implications of such use. Admission is free, but tickets are required. Contact 207-786-6135 or olinarts@bates.edu to reserve tickets. The event is sponsored by the George S. Hammond ’43 Eminent Scientist Lecture Fund at �ֲ���ý.

Lewis is the George L. Argyros Professor of Chemistry at Caltech. His research interests include artificial photosynthesis, focusing on light-induced electron transfer reactions and the photochemistry of semiconductor/liquid interfaces. He also explores electronic odor-detecting sensors that mimic the flesh-and-blood ability to smell, using pattern-recognition algorithms to identify odorants.

Lewis has been a member of Caltech’s faculty since 1988, a professor since 1991 and principal investigator of the institute’s Beckman Institute Molecular Materials Resource Center since 1992. Lewis served on the Stanford University faculty from 1981 to 1988.

Lewis acquired his Ph.D. in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is editor-in-chief of the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Energy & Environmental Science. His awards and honors include the Fresenius Award, the American Chemical Society Award in Pure Chemistry and the Orton Memorial Lecture award and the Princeton Environmental Award, both in 2003. In 2008 he received the Michael Faraday Medal of the Royal Society of Electrochemistry.

He has advised some 60 graduate students and postdoctoral associates.

The George S. Hammond ’43, H’73 Eminent Scientist Lecture Fund is given in honor of George S. Hammond by his associates and students from Iowa State College under the guidance of Jay K. Kochi. The fund supports lectures by scientists specifically chosen by students and faculty in the �ֲ���ý chemistry department.