Southwest Campus Named Most Energy Efficient in Louisville

The Louisville Energy Alliance has honored Jefferson Community and Technical College’s Southwest Campus as its “Best Performer” by a college/university facility for the organization’s Kilowatt Crackdown Awards. The Alliance recognized the Jefferson campus for its significant reduction in energy usage.

The Louisville Kilowatt Crackdown Awards recognize the most energy efficient and most improved buildings throughout Jefferson County and the surrounding areas that have demonstrated exemplary efficiency efforts for the previous year.

The Southwest Campus, which serves approximately 2,000 students in Southwest Louisville, took home top honors for improving from an Energy Use Intensity (EUI) of 105 to 64.

An EUI number indicates the total energy consumption of a building which includes electric, natural gas and other fuels. The national average EUI for a college/university is 84.3, making the Southwest Campus’ energy consumption roughly 25 percent better than the national average---an annual equivalent reduction of 1,280 tons of CO2, or eliminating 247 passenger cars from the road.

Successful modifications that contributed to the decrease in energy usage included switching to LED lighting, upgrading to computer-controlled heating and air, and changing to low-flow toilets and faucets.

Since 2010, energy efficiency at the Southwest Campus has improved by more than 39 percent and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 41 percent.

As part of a larger effort to continually improve energy efficiency at Jefferson, all campuses recently underwent energy management upgrades including changing air handlers to variable speed start-up motors, installing new heating boilers and upgrading cooling towers.