Increasing the Sustainability of U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Laboratory Campuses
William Lintner, DOE Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP)
In the past, DOE has been among the top three most energy-intensive federal agencies. This is in part due to the number of facilities with high process loads, including laboratories. DOE has set an aggressive goal for all of its facilities, including laboratories: to meet, exceed, and lead federal mandates found in the Environmental Protection Act (EPAct) 2005, EISA 2007, and Executive Order (E.O.) 13423. This goal was designed to position DOE as the federal government leader in energy management.
To achieve this, DOE has prioritized the use of private party financing tools, such as energy savings performance contracts (ESPCs), utility energy savings contracts (UESCs), and power purchase agreements (PPAs). Private party financing allows agencies to avoid the circuitous appropriations process, which can take more than two years. Several ESPC projects have been successfully implemented at DOE laboratories. In addition, all new buildings and major renovations in the future will be LEED® Gold certified. Fifteen percent of DOE's existing buildings are being identified and assessed to follow the Five Guiding Principles of High Performance Sustainable Buildings, per E.O. 13423. Between one and two percent of the current inventory already counts toward following the Guiding Principles.
DOE Order 430.2B requires sites to submit executable plans that specify how they will reach goals. Sites must list energy and water conservation measures, new renewable energy projects, and plans for meeting high performance sustainable building and fleet petroleum reduction goals. DOE's FEMP facilitates implementation of sound, cost-effective energy management and investment practices to enhance the nation's energy security and environmental stewardship within DOE and across the federal government.
Biography:
William Lintner is DOE's project manager for the Labs21 program, and has been the project manager since the program's inception. With EPA's managers, he has guided Labs21 through a period of rapid growth to become an exemplary model of pubic–private sector cooperation and the premier organization dedicated to applying sustainable principles to laboratories. Mr. Lintner has championed sustainable best practices, primarily energy efficiency, for more than 25 years, first with the Department of the Navy and more recently with DOE. In 2000, he was recognized for his contributions to reducing the DOE's operating costs by over $100 million per year through investments in energy efficiency retrofit projects. More recently, he has led initiatives to spur facility managers to adopt best practices in their operations. Through these efforts, sustainable design and re-commissioning of buildings have become standard practices, and DOE has come to lead the federal government in the number of buildings that are LEED certified and the number of laboratories registered to be certified. Mr. Lintner is a professional engineer in the Commonwealth of Virginia. He is a graduate of George Washington University and George Mason University.