Over the past decade, Ohio State has increased energy efficiency by 12% across its campuses through improvements to the university's building standards and implementing energy conservation measures. The university also utilizes a variety of energy sources to heat, cool and power its facilities: from geothermal to steam and even a wind power purchase agreement.
Energy Engagement
The university’s Sustainable Design and Construction policy includes energy efficiency standards for the different building types found on its campuses.
In addition, the university's long-term energy concession agreement with Ohio State Energy Partners has enabled unprecedented investment in energy conservation measures at the Columbus campus, including lighting and HVAC upgrades and extensive energy metering.
This metering generates considerable amounts of energy use data from Ohio State's facilities. The university's Enterprise for Research, Innovation and Knowledge (ERIK) has established the Energy Research Data Hub, pairing over five years of Ohio State's metered energy data with additional pieces such as historical weather, SIMS building metadata and wi-fi activity (as occupancy proxy) into an integrated data lake. This is a tremendous resource for Ohio State faculty and researchers to advance their energy-related projects utilizing the university's own generated data from across its building stock.
To find out more about the Energy Research Data Hub or explore an idea you might have to use it, contact Whitney Purdum, the Energy Research Data Hub’s project manager.