Founded in 1831, Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college located in Middletown, Connecticut. The university occupies a 316-acre campus, with 150 wood frame single family houses, 80 traditional academic buildings, and 70 buildings used for maintenance, storage, and multi-family homes for staff and offices. Wesleyan’s student body of approximately 3,000 undergraduate and 200 graduate students are housed and educated on this campus.

CHALLENGE

Wesleyan had completed over a decade’s worth of phased comprehensive energy improvement projects, resulting in a 5% energy consumption reduction. In search of more significant savings, they turned to Fidelity Energy & Sustainability for an energy efficiency proposal that would help the university accomplish their goal of being carbon neutral by 2050. All projects needed to be completed before students returned to school later that summer.

SOLUTION

Despite this time constraint, Fidelity Energy & Sustainability completed an energy audit and provided a proposal for prioritized lighting upgrades and controls projects at multiple buildings throughout campus. In total, work included the replacement of approximately 8,000 fluorescent and incandescent fixtures to LEDs, as well as installing networked lighting controls in six high traffic and heavily utilized buildings.

RESULTS

Fidelity Energy & Sustainability’s lighting efficiency improvements were a success. The new lighting produced significant reduction in annual electrical usage and the financial savings that come with it. As a result, Wesleyan received an incentive from a local energy provider for nearly $550,000 upon completion of the project, which helped mitigate investment costs.

EXECUTED BY

Environmental Systems Co.

CLIENT

Wesleyan University

CLIENT REFERENCE

Mike Mussatto
General Manager

SCOPE OF THE PROJECT

Energy Audit, LED Lighting, Networked Controls

PROJECT TYPE

Building Automation, Energy Services

PROJECT SIZE

8,000 lights replaced with LED

BUILDING TYPE

Education

FES TEAM MEMBERS/ROLES

Daniela Iozzo, Energy Project Manager