Brookhaven Lab's Utility Energy Service Contract Project Team Wins 2016 DOE Sustainability Award

UESC project team enlarge

The members of the UESC project team are front row, from left: Aundrea Clifton, Lloyd Nelson, Evelyn Landini, all BHSO; and Susan McKeon, Business Services Directorate. Back row, from left: Mike McCann, BHSO; Dari Scuola, Safety and Health Services Division; Peggy Caradonna, Modernization Project Office; Mark Toscano, Energy and Utilities Division (EU); Chris Seniuk, BHSO; Brigitte Kimble, EU; Chris Channing, EU; and David Mitchell, BHSO.

The Utility Energy Service Contract (UESC) Team at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has been awarded the 2016 Department of Energy Sustainability Award in the team category.

In 2013, the DOE-Brookhaven Site Office (BHSO) at Brookhaven Lab and the local utility, National Grid, entered into a Utility Energy Service Contract (UESC) for infrastructure upgrades designed to reduce the Lab’s energy costs by $1.3 million, energy intensity by 11 percent and greenhouse gas emissions by over 7,000 metric tons. Under the UESC, National Grid facilitated $12.2 million in third party financing for DOE to implement lighting and other energy efficiency upgrades at the Laboratory. The loan is being repaid using the savings generated by the upgrades.

During the project, the UESC team upgraded lighting systems in 18 buildings, replaced and enhanced energy management controls in nine buildings, and installed a new high-efficiency, 1,250-ton water chiller and related components at the Laboratory's Central Chilled Water Facility, which provides cooling water for Lab processes and buildings. The project was completed on time and met its original scope. BHSO, along with Brookhaven Science Associates (BSA, the company formed by Stony Brook University and Battelle to manage the Lab for DOE’s Office of Science), managed the project, with the work carried out by Siemens.

“To help ensure the project’s success, Brookhaven assembled a team that represented all facets of the anticipated work,” said Associate Laboratory Director for Facilities & Operations Amy Nunziata.   “This team included experienced personnel from many areas including contracting, procurement, engineering, project management, and environmental, safety and health.”

In this privately financed initiative, Brookhaven Lab assembled an experienced, well-rounded team to address all areas of the project, with a focus on clear communication of scope, expectations, requirements, and changing circumstances. In all design-build projects that have firm-fixed pricing, such as a UESC, there are inevitably variances between the original preliminary design and actual field conditions. The Brookhaven team anticipated changes and made provisions for accommodating them, including pre-established values for numerous tasks, allowing swapping of Energy Conservation Measures from one location to another. As a result they were able to complete the project within the original payback parameters, and on schedule.

“The Brookhaven team’s efforts and commitment to sustainability are essential to ensuring DOE is a government-wide leader in sustainability,” said John Shonder, director of the Sustainability Performance Office at DOE.

“We have always stated that the success of this project was based upon the dedication of a multi-disciplinary team of DOE, Lab, contractor, and subcontractor individuals who frequently communicated expectations and requirements in a streamlined, organized manner,” said Evelyn Landini, director of DOE’s Brookhaven Site Office Business Management Division.  “Receiving the award is a validation of everyone’s efforts, and gives us the framework for completing other sustainability related projects in the future.”

2016-6402  |  INT/EXT  |  Newsroom