A private institution established in 1949, the University of San Diego (USD) is renowned for its commitment to academic excellence and leadership. Today, it’s guided by its strategic plan and vision for the future – to set the standard for an engaged, contemporary Catholic university by fostering an environment for student success, diversity, and community engagement. 

Central to this vision is the university’s dedication to reducing energy use through a variety of energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. Collaborative efforts, such as USD’s decades-long partnership with Siemens, exemplify the university’s proactive approach to energy efficiency. Because there are more than 30 buildings on campus with an air conditioning load, chilled water optimization has been essential to this strategy.

For more than 30 years, Siemens has provided automation technologies at USD, including a Demand Flow® implementation in 2010. Since then, the campus has added several buildings, thus increasing the load on the campus’s chiller plant. These changes in load coincided with configuration and equipment changes within the plant, some of which had an impact on the efficiency gains from the original Demand Flow® implementation.

Optimizing campus efficiency through partnership with Siemens Energy Services and Demand Flow