by Bryan Gibel
Daily Lobo
ASUNM will ask New Mexico for $25 million to make the University more energy efficient.
"If you lower the cost of your energy consumption, that money can be invested in education, which is a better use of resources," said Matt Barnes, vice president of the student government.
The money would let UNM equip about 65 buildings with an energy-monitoring system called Direct Digital Control, facilities engineer Hans Barsun said.
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The student senate will lobby for the money at the state Legislature in January, Barnes said.
Members of Physical Plant gave ASUNM a presentation about the system Wednesday.
Direct Digital Control allows the department to look at and regulate temperature, energy and water usage in buildings across campus, said Wayne Davis, energy services manager for Physical Plant.
"We can set (energy usage) for an entire building using a master control, or I can schedule each room individually depending on occupancy," Davis said. "That's true savings when you do that."
It would save the University about $3 million per year, about 20 percent of its annual energy costs, Barsun said.
"It's a very good investment all in all," he said.
About 50 buildings on campus, including Zimmerman Library, have the system, facilities engineer Lee Imhof said.
Imhof said installing the system in Bratton Hall saved the University about $450,000 in energy costs
between 2003 and 2006.
During the presentation, Davis showed ASUNM a real-time computer model of President David Schmidly's office.
The model showed the room's current and past energy usage and displayed its energy schedule for the future.
"If he forgets to turn the lights off, we can tell," Davis said. "You can see Scholes Hall woke up at 6 a.m., and it also shut itself off at (6 p.m.), which is what we're looking for."
Barnes said the system is a step in the right direction for making the University more sustainable.
"Instead of reinventing the wheel and putting new things in, we're just going to improve what we already have," he said. "It might not be that we're switching all the buses on campus to bio-diesel. We're just making what we have more efficient."
