Florida Solar Energy Center Presents Energy Award to Walt Disney World Company

Photo of (left to right) Tom Hopkins, Walt Disney; Paul Allen, Reedy Creek; Jim Fenton, FSEC.
Tom Hopkins, Animal Operations Area Director at Walt Disney World Co. (left), and Paul Allen, Chief Energy Management Engineer at Reedy Creek Energy Services (center), accept the Energy Achievement Award presented by Jim Fenton, Director of FSEC.

At last week’s Policy Advisory Board Meeting of the Florida Solar Energy Center/University of Central Florida, Center Director Jim Fenton presented the Florida Energy Achievement Award to Paul Allen, representing Walt Disney World Company and its “Strive for Five” energy reduction program. The Florida Energy Achievement Award is presented annually to an entity that demonstrates statewide leadership and significant achievement in sustainability and energy savings in Florida. Fenton commented, “Choosing the winner of this year’s competition was especially hard, because we had a number of high-quality applications from private companies and utilities who are conducting energy-saving programs in the state and achieving significant results. Our committee felt, though, that Disney’s innovative company-wide program designed to reduce overall energy consumption by 5 percent by involving everyone from management to cast members stood out because of its wide impact as well as its individual components.”

Allen later presented an overview of the program “How Disney Saves Energy (Hint: It’s Not Magic)” in a presentation to the board and FSEC staff members. Paul Allen is Chief Engineer of Energy Management at Reedy Creek Energy Services, which provides electricity, water and fire service to Disney World. Allen described the development of the program, designed to respond to Disney management concerns about the energy consumption and the need to reduce energy usage. Called “Strive for Five,” the program involves all levels of employees in the company’s goal to reduce energy usage by 5 percent.

Energy-reducing strategies have measurement as their basis. By measuring usage in various areas and departments and presenting it in an easy-to-read format, all employees can see what is happening: how much energy is used, if it is more or less than the previous period of measurement. Allen said that when everyone in the company is looking at results, each department is motivated to do its best. Walt Disney World Company uses Utility Report Cards (http://utilityreportcards.com), a database-supported reporting system which exhibits many statistics showing how much electricity is being used and some of the factors that have impacted the usage. Disney’s innovative company-wide program is designed to reduce overall energy consumption by 5 percent by involving everyone from management to cast members-a facility-wide effort.

To read more about how Disney saves energy, click here (pdf icon 255KB).

First High School Science Bowl to be Held at Florida Solar Energy Center Saturday

The 2007 Southeast Regional Science Bowl competition will be held at the Florida Solar Energy Center/University of Central Florida (FSEC) on Saturday, March 3, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.  Fourteen teams from Florida will participate in an academic competition.  The top academic team members and their mentor from this Science Bowl will receive an all-expense-paid trip to Washington D.C. to represent the Southeast region of the United States at the National Science Bowl competition, April 26-30, 2007.

The Southeast Regional High School Science Bowl is a fast-paced question and answer contest in which students answer questions about earth science, physical science, life science, general science and math. Read more

Presentation on Renewable Energy in Disaster Relief Set for Feb. 22

A free presentation for the general public on disaster preparedness using renewable energy technologies will be presented at the Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) in Cocoa on Thursday evening, February 22.

The event will be held in the FSEC auditorium at 1679 Clearlake Road in Cocoa, on the campus of Brevard Community College and UCF in Cocoa. The doors will be open at 5:45 p.m. and the hour-long presentation will begin at 6:15 p.m.

The presentation by Bill Young, a researcher and disaster relief expert at FSEC, will focus on two important questions: what do you need to do to prepare for an emergency situation, and what are the benefits of using renewable energy technologies?  Solar and other forms of renewable energy offer many benefits to individuals and communities after disasters ranging from hurricanes and severe storms to terrorism or other major calamities, providing power for emergency lighting, medical facilities, shelters and other critical needs. Read more

Florida Solar Energy Center Will Host Monthly Tours

The public is invited to tour the University of Central Florida’s Florida Solar Energy Center for free on the second Thursday of each month.

FSEC staff will conduct the monthly tours of its highly energy-efficient facilities beginning Feb. 8, 2007 at 2 p.m. The center is located at 1679 Clearlake Road on the Cocoa campus that is shared by UCF and Brevard Community College. Monthly tours will be held the second Thursday of each month at 2 p.m.

Each tour will last about one hour and will be followed by a 30-minute video entitled “Killowatt Ours.” Visitors will have an opportunity to explore the FSEC building, one of the most energy-efficient commercial buildings in the world. Tour guides will point out some of the features that can be adopted by homeowners and businesses to make their buildings more energy efficient. Read more

New EnergyGauge® Summit Software Offers Easier Building Energy Calculation for Tax Deductions

An easy-to-use new software product for calculating qualification for commercial building federal tax deductions, LEED® building Energy Performance, and energy code compliance was released today (January 29) at the AHR EXPO. This new software was developed by the University of Central Florida’s Florida Solar Energy Center.

EnergyGauge Summit Premier offers automatic ASHRAE 2001 and ASHRAE 2004 reference building creation including the Building Performance Rating Method in Appendix G of the 2004 Standard. Unlike other software that requires the user to create multiple building decks and make many changes to create a reference building according to code or IRS rules, EnergyGauge Summit allows users to simply enter basic information on the building they are evaluating. The software then automatically creates a reference building, performs the necessary simulations and analysis and provides a report indicating qualification for the U.S. Energy Policy Act tax deductions for whole building energy savings. The program will also determine if the building meets the IRS standard for partial envelope, equipment or lighting savings for those projects not seeking to meet the whole building performance level. Read more