Winthrop leads in ‘green’ movement: energy efficiency

By Amanda Phipps

phippsa@mytjnow.com

The West Center is a LEED building. Photo by Stephanie Eaton • eatons@mytjnow.comWater-saving toilets, energy-efficient lighting and water air-conditioning services make Winthrop one of the leading schools in South Carolina for energy efficiency, said Walter Hardin, associate vice president for facilities management. 

Winthrop was the first school in South Carolina to have an energy-performance contract and has had three successful energy contracts since 1993; the 2003 contract was the energy-performance contract of the year, Hardin said. Winthrop’s recycling program has been placed first and second in the state before as well, he said.

Hardin is the chairman of the Association of South Carolina Energy Managers and is an Accredited Commercial Energy Manager (ACEM) by the state. He’s helped Winthrop implement energy-saving techniques.

Starting in the 1980s, Winthrop looked at ways to save money it could use to fix things, Hardin said. The university started focusing on sustainability to save money, which is using resources in a manner that doesn’t affect future generations’ ability to fill their needs, he said.

“It’s the right thing to do,” Hardin said.

Winthrop upgraded its systems in 1993 and used the money it saved on energy to pay for the upgrades, he said.

Winthrop uses energy-efficient lighting, which uses one-third the power regular lights use, Hardin said.

The West Center is a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified (LEED) building, meaning it must meet the green-building requirements, Hardin said. The West Center pool is cleaned with ultraviolet light instead of chemicals, which saves 200,000 gallons of water a year, he said. The university’s low-flush toilets save water as well.

Winthrop uses volatile organic compounds (VOC’s)-free paint, which does not give off any gas and produces no smell (in all aspects of the campus), Hardin said.

The green area outside DIGS is a storm-water-retention area, he said. When it rains, water collects in the bowl-shaped areas and soaks into the ground instead of running off to the rivers, which is people’s water supply. This cuts down on the amount of chemicals from roads entering the river.

“This is on the edge of a wave of new thinking,” Hardin said. “It’s so exciting it makes the hairs on my arm stand up.”

Cooling and heating water produces the air conditioning throughout the campus, he said. A computer software program controls the temperature of all the buildings on campus and can be run from a laptop anywhere on or off campus, Hardin said. The buildings are kept at cooler temperatures when they are unoccupied to save energy, but the temperature of residence halls and the music and science lab buildings is kept constant.

Hardin said keeping the university energy-efficient is a never-ending job.

“All our people are always thinking about (energy efficiency),” he said. “It’s a holistic job.”

Hardin also said being energy efficient is something worth doing.

“It doesn’t always cost more to think smarter,” he said.

Facilities management has also applied for a grant to purchase five electric service vehicles to use around campus, Hardin said. They plan to put Solar PV, or solar energy, panels on the roof of the shed where they will store the vehicles to replace the energy it takes to charge them, making them energy neutral. The grant wasn’t approved, but management is looking for other funding opportunities for this project.

“We think this kind of thinking is the way of the future,” he said.