Final Technical Report

The industrial Assessment Center at the University of Massachusetts completed 83 assessments in this project period, covering all states in New England and the eastern part of New York. The combined energy consumption for these facilities was more than 750,000,000 kWh costing approximately $77,000,000 for electricity and close to 5,600,000 MMBtu for all fossil fuels combined, totaling almost $37,000,000. The average annual energy costs per plant were $1,372,600. We had almost eight recommendations per assessment, and the implemented recommendations alone are saving these facilities on an average $66,500 or almost 5% of their total energy bill. We have organized and participated in sixteen seminars and presentations promoting energy efficiency practices and other DOE tools and programs. Our center developed the Chilled Water System Assessment tool that is part of DOE’s BestPractices Suite of Tools. During this period we had nineteen students in the program. Fifteen were graduate students, and four were undergraduate students. Eleven of them graduated with the Masters of Science degree in mechanical engineering and are working in the energy field, and three are currently in the program. Two undergraduate students were hired by engineering firms that perform energy efficiency services, and one continued his education and is pursuing an advanced engineering degree. We cooperate with the Manufacturing Extension Partnerships and state Energy Offices to provide energy efficiency services to their constituents. As a result of our activities, all our clients requested assessments or were referred to us by one of the state energy offices, the MEP’s or DOE. Our current and former staff members hold 16 Qualified Specialist certificates. Seven of those were awarded to our students while participating in the IAC program. Currently we have three staff members with nine QS certificates and two students with four. Three people from our staff were involved in the DOE’s Save Energy Now program during the first year of program as steam and process heating qualified specialists. We completed eleven ESAs during 2006