Sustainability

West Chester University

 

Campus Wide Projects

The "Green IT" project

Information Services has been in the forefront of "Green IT" programs in IT and has made great strides in the past few years in accomplishing a "Greener Campus."

WCU's Green IT Initiatives

  • Major Labs have implemented double sided printing to cut paper waste

  • ACC was one of the first locations on campus where Paper recycling was implemented

  • WCU's new Data Center was designed for energy efficiency, using cold-aisle cooling, blade servers, and server virtualization which reduced energy consumption by 50% in comparison to the previous data center

  • Work is almost complete in redesign of WCU's second data center for energy efficiency

  • Digital Signage installed in most campus buildings, reducing printed information

  • WCU Cut 100 Metric Tons of Carbon Emissions, by going All-Wireless in New Dorms

  • Two new residence halls are completely wireless to reduce the energy consumption in the data network closets

  • All future new dorms will be wireless

  • Over $180K on network switches in two building were saved – helping to build a greener campus. Air conditioning/power reduction – Greener as well as cost savings

  • Future dorm project will reduce construction costs and ongoing IT expenses for new buildings as well as Lower the environmental impact of student housing

  • Going green - carbon footprint savings

  • E-mail storage was increased by 10 fold to promote on-line storage and to eliminate additional printing to save materials

  • IT Training programs promote "Green IT"

  • WCU's tremendous web expansion has reduced the need for printing by posting all campus pertinent information on the Web timely

  • Learning Management System deployment and implementation has reduced the need to printing class materials for students promoting "Green Initiatives"

North Campus Geothermal Heating and Cooling

  • Planned for construction in phases over the next five years

  • Initial phase includes new residence halls and Francis Green Library

  • Eventual tie-in of the well field completed at 25 University Ave. in 2008

  • Major well field to be constructed in phases in areas south of Rosedale Avenue, from New Street east to the Sykes Student Union parking lot

  • Each building brought into the loop will be outfitted with new ground source heat pumps

  • Savings could be as high as 70% over existing conventional heating and cooling.

Guaranteed Energy Savings Agreement

  • This contract launched a 17 year program through which the university expects to see energy costs reduced by 20-25%, more than enough to pay for the bond funds that will cover the modifications.

  • The initial two-year phase involves completion of a number of Energy Conservation Measures (ECMs) totaling nearly $19 million. These include a variety of improvements to HVAC systems throughout the campus, as well as weatherization, natatorium modifications, solar film on some buildings' windows, boiler plant modifications, and a campus wide energy management and control system.

  • The changes which will impact the largest number of university locations will be the upgrades to lighting as well as water conservation improvements in nearly every building.

  • The contractor will remain involved for another 15 years to measure and verify that the expected energy savings are realized.