Kentucky Community and Technical College
KCTCS | Kentucky
Over 4 Million Square Feet of Infrastructure Improvements Adds Up to Substantial Savings
The Kentucky Community and Technical College System (KCTCS), an agency that supports sixteen regional colleges over 70 campuses, partnered with CMTA for a multi-phase, multi-campus renovation and energy upgrade project encompassing 132 buildings, over 4,100,00 square feet. Robust, long-term solutions featuring complete HVAC system replacements, controls systems, and comprehensive LED lighting have been implemented to address aging infrastructure and rising utility costs. CMTA won the 2022 First Place ASHRAE Technology Award in the Educational Facilities category for our thorough commissioning work for this multi-campus system.
Project At A Glance
- Size: 132 Buildings
- Contract Amount: $31,000,000
- Guaranteed Savings: $2,587,830 Annually
- Actual Savings: $3,293,490 Annually
- Completed: 2022
Awards
- ASHRAE International Technology Award - First Place
- 2018 Louisville Energy Alliance Kilowatt Crackdown - Best College/University Facility (JCTC Southwest)
- 2017 Louisville Energy Alliance Kilowatt Crackdown - Best College/University Facility (JCTC Shelby)
The Challenges
- Replace aging infrastructure and address years of deferred maintenance
- Retrofit or replace 100% of lighting with LED
- Replace or integrate obsolete and legacy DDC Controls to a standard front-end interface
- Fund the project 100% by savings over a 14 year term
- Renovate HVAC, controls, lighting and plumbing systems with no interruption to the academic semester
The Solutions
KCTCS encompasses the second largest area of public buildings in the commonwealth of Kentucky. With tight operational budgets and most capital projects dedicated to new building construction, KCTCS turned to CMTA, with Guaranteed Energy Savings Performance Contracting utilized as a mechanism for funding facility improvements. Thus far CMTA has partnered with KCTCS on nine college projects; five have been completed with at least a year of post-project energy performance documented.
CMTA has raised the bar in energy project delivery for KCTCS by delivering the most thorough and far-reaching scopes possible. Fifteen buildings have received major or complete system replacements so far. By favoring full system renovations and complete equipment replacements over trendy energy “widgets,” CMTA has driven energy consumption as low as possible and renewed the life cycle of KCTCS buildings. HVAC improvements have ranged from the replacement of AHUs and VAV terminal units to entire chiller and boiler plant replacements.
DDC Controls infrastructure has been one point of emphasis. Legacy control systems with failed components and limited adjustability plagued various campuses and severely hindered energy performance. KCTCS has high expectations for building automation. CMTA developed a dedicated implementation plan headed by professional engineers, commissioning experts and controls specialists to directly coordinate with KCTCS through all phases of the project, audit through warranty. By not relying on a low bidder’s DDC controls contractor to specify and design the controls, CMTA ensured system architecture conformed with KCTCS' standards and exceeded energy savings performance expectations.
Other renovations have included LED lighting upgrades and occupancy sensor and daylighting additions at all buildings, water efficiency upgrades to low-flow fixtures across all facilities, and computer power management for over 3,000 campus computers.