While thousands of University of Windsor students, faculty, and staff are working remotely, the team in Facilities Planning, Renovation, and Construction Services is still working hard behind the scenes to improve campus buildings, especially when it comes to energy use.

The Facilities team and others met remotely with representatives from Enwin, Enbridge, and the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) last week to express appreciation for their collaborative support and receive incentive cheques totalling more than $250,000 and representing annual energy savings of more than $420,000 for the University.

“Energy management is a big part of what we do,” said Danny Castellan, UWindsor manager of Facility Planning, Renovations & Construction.

“The University is one of the region’s largest consumers of energy, so it’s very important that we continuously look for new ways to create efficiencies and use it responsibly.”

Castellan says annual energy management incentive programs operated by Enbridge, Enwin, and IESO give the University an opportunity to make infrastructure improvements to its deferred maintenance projects.

With the support of the University’s energy partners, in 2019-20 the team invested in heat recovery units and insulation and condensate system upgrades with Enbridge for incentives of $71,319, resulting in annual energy savings of $121,097.

The incentive of $155,605, provided by Enwin under the IESO's Save on Energy program, funded lighting upgrades, pump replacements, and a highly efficient CORe building envelope, resulting in $288,122 annual energy savings.

IESO’s $23,734 incentives paid for lighting retrofits and funding for an energy manager performance contract, with annual energy savings of $12,623.

“These incentives and energy savings are used to fund future energy projects. We see the benefits immediately and know that these improvements continue to pay dividends going forward,” he said.