The PPD’s Engineering and Energy Services division won the Corporate Energy Management award for “outstanding accomplishments in developing, organizing, managing and implementing their corporate energy management program,” according to the NMAEE website.
And Donald Swick, University facilities engineer, was honored with Energy Engineer of the Year award for his lifetime achievements.
“The award is given to an individual for outstanding accomplishments in promoting the practices, principles and procedures of energy engineering,” the website said.
Swick said his individual award is based on his work in energy conservation for the past 40 years at various locations around the state. Most of his work at UNM has involved upgrading the infrastructures of some of UNM’s oldest facilities, such as Northrop and Regener Halls, he said.
“Each of those projects was a total upgrade of building controls, improvements to the heating and cooling systems and reduced wattage to lighting systems,” Swick said. “Typically, we saw in the range of 35- to 45-percent savings in each of those projects.”
The true honor is having the opportunity to work with a talented group of engineers at the PPD, he said.
“Not only are we looking at projects that involve improving the performance within buildings, we have developed a group of technicians that have the training and the skills to install, operate and maintain these new digital control systems,” Swick said.
David Penasa, facilities engineer-electrical, said he has been involved with the PPD for 11 years. He and his fellow engineers have been working hard to reduce UNM’s energy dependence and “to be recognized for (their) work is extremely gratifying,” he said.
“The fact that we can save on the order of more than a million dollars a year in utility costs by implementing these energy conservation projects, I think, is pretty impressive,” Penasa said.
Penasa has also been promoted to the position of Manager of the facilities.
He said that UNM can continue to expect significant contributions to energy efficiency around campus.
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“We have a running list of projects that we’re basically just waiting to get funded,” Penasa said. “We have some shelf-ready projects right now that we’re trying to get together, like HVAC and lighting at Ortega, for example.”
According to the application for the Corporate Energy Management award submitted by the PPD, accurate energy cost tracking estimates that gross energy savings for all conservation activities has saved the University $22 million since 2008. The savings equate to an overall reduction in energy usage of approximately 18.5 percent at main campus.
Tomas Lujan is a staff reporter for the Daily Lobo. He can be contacted at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @TomasVLujan.
