Context
Like many colleges and universities, the University of California, Berkeley has bold goals toward sustainability, energy efficiency, and environmental stewardship. The university encourages green purchasing and installing energy-efficient technologies whenever possible, ranging in everything from their meal ingredients to their building supplies. As a model for future buildings, the design team for Crossroads was tasked with finding all products and technologies that would make this the greenest building on campus. When it came to the kitchen, the team decided to install a demand control kitchen ventilation system that could modulate based on the cooking environment.
Why kitchen controls?
According to the EIA, commercial food service uses more energy per square foot than any other industry and within that, 22% of all energy consumption can be attributed to the kitchen HVAC alone!
Result
The Crossroads dining hall became the first building on campus to achieve a green certification and since, the school has expanded to 15 certified buildings ranging from basic certification to Gold standard. The implementation of Intelli-Hood® kitchen controls helped the University of California cut the fan speed almost in half with an average speed of 55%. This left the school with a total savings of $67,477 in energy and utility costs in the first year alone!
