One of the largest public universities in the United States, the Ohio State University (OSU) enrolls 60,000 students and employs 40,000 staff. Its sprawling 25M ft2 campus in Columbus, Ohio, encompasses 485 buildings, including three hospitals, museums, libraries, classroom buildings, laboratories, residences, and a 120,000-seat stadium.
OSU sought both to expand its utility systems and make a major shift toward sustainable development. It wanted a partner to take over campus energy management and to improve energy costs and use — the campus was spending $115M annually on energy, including 110 MW of peak demand and 2.9 million MMBtu of steam. Ecosystem was selected as a key member of the partner team led by Ohio State Energy Partners (formed by ENGIE North America and Axium Infrastructure). In a first-of-its-kind project in North America, the partner team will operate and maintain the heating, cooling and electricity infrastructures on campus and sell the energy back to OSU for 50 years.
Over seven to ten years, Ecosystem will help reimagine the buildings’ energy ecosystem to meet OSU’s goal of cutting energy use at the building level by 25% at an estimated cost savings of $250M.
Heat recovery systems
Interior and exterior lighting upgrades
Steam to hot water conversion
Centralized controls modernization
Heating and cooling systems deep retrofit and optimization
Ventilation deep retrofit and optimization
Renewable and distributed energy resources
