Toyota Center / Houston Rockets – Carin Giga – 2009

Goals

Carin Giga spent her summer as a Climate Corps fellow at the Toyota Center, home of the Houston Rockets NBA basketball team, the Houston Aeros AHL hockey team, and the site of a wide variety of concert events throughout the year. An MBA student at Rice University, Giga worked with facility managers and engineers at the Toyota Center to find opportunities to reduce energy consumption and further the Center’s progress toward Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Existing Building Operations and Maintenance (LEED EBOM) accreditation.

Solutions

Giga investigated a variety of projects, from lighting retrofits and solar window film applications to vending machine and office occupancy sensors to PC Power Management Software and fan replacements.

Potential Impact

In total, Giga identified projects that could reduce annual energy costs by approximately $68,000, cut more than 1.1 million kWh of electricity and avoid 661 tons of CO2 emissions.