Strategic Energy Master Planning for Carbon Neutrality

Universities across the United States are generating goals to be more sustainable and carbon neutral. The energy used in existing buildings on campuses amount to a large volume of greenhouse emissions and must be reduced to help achieve neutrality goals. Strategic Energy Master Plans are instrumental to support these goals through the development of recommendations to reduce energy. Calculating the energy use intensity for existing buildings, a main component of a Strategic Energy Master Plan, can help the campus understand where energy is being used the most. With this information the highest energy consuming buildings can be the focus of renovations to improve energy efficiency to reduce emissions. This study evaluated existing building energy use at California State University, Chico and made energy efficiency recommendations on 12 campus buildings. The information was also used to identify where the campus may fall short of their neutrality goals and provided additional recommendations to meet them