Vassar College – Clayton Carlson – 2014

Goals

Clayton Carlson was enlisted by Vassar College to both troubleshoot and redesign its existing energy sub-metering system and create new funding and approval mechanisms for campus sustainability projects.

Solutions

Collaborating with the Buildings & Grounds and Vassar Sustainability staff, Carlson worked to restore functionality to Vassar’s $100,000 sub-metering hardware and building management system, servicing over 70 buildings on campus. He merged redundant systems and oversaw the design and implementation of custom energy dashboards for dormitory buildings and new graphical user interfaces for occupants to control HVAC and lighting systems. Through stakeholder engagement, Carlson put in place a system to aggregate, approve and implement community-initiated sustainability projects. He created a process to mentor community members through application submittal and allow proper evaluation and consideration by key campus administrators. He also advised the budget office to allocate new pools of money for “innovation grants” and proposed the creation of a new $135,000 green revolving loan fund.

Potential Impact

Vassar’s sub-metering hardware is fully functional. The administration also has access to Carlson’s comprehensive proposal, which can be implemented using existing staff capacity.