Business Energy Success Stories

Luther College - Decorah, Iowa

Surrounded by wooded hills and limestone bluffs, Luther College is committed to energy conservation and protecting the environment.

Aiming to accomplish both, the college worked with Alliant Energy Account Manager Steve Shupp to design and develop a campus energy management plan.

“Implementing the best possible energy conservation practices is part of Luther College's responsibility to the environment,” said Diane Tacke, Luther's vice president for finance and administration. “The potential financial benefits were obviously another great motivation.”

Electric savings:
4,430,415 kWh per year

Natural gas savings:
156,664 therms per year

The new energy management system controls the heating, ventilating and air-conditioning, as well as lighting systems for every room of every building on campus. Wireless capability allows monitoring of all building management functions from a single facility or remotely.

In addition to the typical implementation tasks, the Alliant Energy team had to accommodate multiple facilities with challenging requirements - like the humidity and temperature levels of rooms with stationary musical instruments.

“This project was very complex,” said Mark Dunne, Alliant Energy project manager. “Seventeen buildings, 15 months of construction, coordinating vendors and crews, timing the installations, setting up baselines in each building.”

“Alliant Energy paid all the up-front costs of the project through its Performance Edge program,” said Rich Tenneson, Luther's director of facilities services. “The college will pay back the costs over a seven-year period from the energy savings generated by the improvements.”

Jay Uthoff, who oversees the college's utilities operations, said Luther has a long history of energy conservation practices.

“The AccuPower system is the most comprehensive and analytical energy conservation project conducted during my 21 years at the college,” Uthoff said.

“Before this system was installed, the college could only assess the energy usage of the whole campus,” said Shupp. “Now, they can view energy usage building by building. This will help to analyze historic energy trends and predict energy needs for planning and budgeting purposes.”

“The projected annual energy savings is already exceeding our expectations,” said Tenneson. “In three months' time, the college used less natural gas than the same three-month period in the previous seven years.”

Impact:

The school's electricity conservation will have an environmental impact equivalent to:

• The annual power consumption of 521 average households; or
• A reduction of 8,736,640 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions each year; or
• Nearly 200 acres of trees planted; or
• Nearly 11,000,000 vehicle miles saved; or
• More than 850 cars off the road.

In recent years, Luther College has also invested in earth-friendly geothermal heating and cooling systems for several campus buildings.

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