The 2011 U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Sustainability Awards* recognized teams and individuals for outstanding contributions to energy, water, and vehicle fleet management and associated cost savings at DOE facilities in fiscal year 2011. In addition, awards were also presented for projects that represented exemplary sustainability practices.

Brian Costlow
U.S. Department of Energy Headquarters

Brian Costlow joined DOE in 1988. As the current director of the DOE Office of Administration and the sustainability lead for DOE headquarters, Costlow consistently worked to optimize sustainability improvements within DOE's two headquarters facilities in Washington, D.C., and Germantown, Maryland. He led numerous cross-cutting team efforts, including the installation of DOE's first headquarters 66,000 square foot cool roof; installing a solar array that tests multiple photovoltaic (PV) materials and generates 235 megawatt-hours annually; and awarding a $26.2 million energy savings performance contract (ESPC) estimated to save $59.5 million in avoided costs. The ESPC will save water at the Germantown complex and reduce energy consumption at the D.C. facility by more than 20% annually through LED exterior lights, steam trap repairs, a variable air volume system retrofit, and a centralized chiller plant. Costlow's efforts to reduce DOE headquarters' executive fleet by more than 35% and ensure that more than 75% of the fleet is comprised of alternative fuel vehicles resulted in savings of more than 5,000 gallons of petroleum in FY 2010.

Michael Dunn
Argonne National Laboratory

Michael Dunn has managed the Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) Energy Program since 2007, and in FY 2010 volunteered to create and run the ANL's Sustainability Program. Dunn developed and manages Argonne's Energy Savings Reinvestment Program of in-house energy projects that, as of FY 2010, reinvested $500,000 in new energy conservation projects. He also worked on setting up demand response programs to cut demand during peak summer months. In FY 2009 and FY 2010, ANL demonstrated load shedding capability resulting in more than $475,000 in savings. Through a series of FY 2010 water recycling projects, his team saved more than 27 million gallons of potable water and $68,000 in avoided costs. He has overseen the implementation of two major ESPCs totaling more than $11 million in investment. Dunn and his team also worked to tackle culture change through a series of efforts, including a sustainability website and idea exchange, an employee contest to promote green commuting practices, and numerous presentations to employees, community leaders, and local schools.

Gene Higgins
Richland Operations Office

Gene Higgins contributed substantially to the success of DOE Hanford's complex environmental cleanup effort through his vision of integrating information management (IM) and providing leadership and coordinating information resource requirements between three DOE offices and eight prime contractors. Higgins developed and implemented a strategic plan that aligned information technology (IT) infrastructure, capacity, and services to the site's greater goal to implement green IT solutions. Under his leadership, the Integrated Project Team instituted several projects under a new green IT initiative that resulted in the consolidation of 19 computer network and telecommunications facilities to three and reducing energy consumption by 2.7 billion Btu and $23,000 in FY 2010. Higgins obtained funding through partnerships and equipment manufacturer buyback programs to complete the initiative in only three years instead of 10. His strategic vision positioned the site for thin client; cloud computing; heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) upgrades; and the removal of five additional facilities from the IM infrastructure to achieve even greater reductions in FY 2011.

Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Fleet Management Program

Princeton University Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) initiated its vehicle fleet management program in 2006 to comply with Federal mandates to decrease fleet petroleum consumption and increase alternative fuel use, and has since exceeded fleet management targets for FY 2015. The program launched a biodiesel pilot program in 2007 to introduce employees to alternative fuels and minimize end-user resistance. The program began using B-20 as an alternative fuel for new utility vehicles and existing diesel-powered fleet vehicles. The successful use of this fuel in a new utility vehicle—the John Deere Gator—was groundbreaking as this was the first time B-20 fuel was used in this vehicle. PPPL also reinstituted the use of natural gas powered vehicles, obtaining three new full size pickup trucks. By 2009, PPPL addressed infrastructure requirements to accommodate permanent storage and dispensing of both E-85 and B-20. As of FY 2010, 73% of the PPPL fleet was comprised of alternative fueled vehicles. Alternative fuel consumption was 19 times higher than FY 2005 levels, representing more than 77% of PPPL's total covered fleet fuel use.

National Nuclear Security Administration
Green Fleet Team

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) established its Green Fleet Team in 2005 to plan for increased alternative fuels use, alternative fuel vehicle acquisitions, reduced petroleum use, and fleet greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction. To decrease the fleet's environmental impact while increasing operational efficiency, Federal and contractor team members are actively encouraged to share best practices and lessons learned and to implement pilot approaches to achieve breakthrough performance. The team focuses on reducing petroleum use and miles traveled, and on right-sizing the fleet with alternative fueled vehicles in operation. In FY 2010, NNSA sites improved vehicle maintenance and fuel efficiency and made greater use of alternative fuels where available, resulting in a 12% decrease in petroleum use, a 32% increase in alternative fuel use, and nearly $4 million in avoided costs. The team has also documented sustained results, reducing petroleum use by 36% since 2005. Additionally, the team increased alternative fuel use by 254% between FY 2005 and FY 2010.

Stephanie Austad
Kimberly Frerichs
Matthew Hammond
Christopher Ischay
Tad Pearson
Idaho National Laboratory
Sustainability Program

The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) Sustainability Program worked to integrate sustainability concepts into engineering design and facility operations processes, as well as into INL policies, standards, processes, and basic cultural values. Individuals across the laboratory contributed to this effort by implementing projects, revising standards, working internally and externally to implement sustainable criteria into new building designs, and providing pertinent educational materials. Activities completed in FY 2010 included installing a cool roof at no additional cost from the original design; securing INL's first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED^®) Certification for a new building; revising two design and planning standards to incorporate sustainability concepts and metrics for all INL buildings; switching from fuel oil to electricity for steam heating at the Materials and Fuels Complex; and increasing the availability and use of alternative fuels by more than 62%. These and other activities resulted in annual savings of more than $1.6 million in avoided costs, 3.8 billion Btu of electricity, nearly 600,000 gallons of fuel oil, approximately 190,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and the equivalent of more than 10,600 metric tons of carbon dioxide.

Carlsbad Field Office
Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
Sustainability in Road Construction

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) south access road is used daily by employees commuting to and from the WIPP site. Early in planning reconstruction of the severely deteriorated road, the project team worked to incorporate sustainable options, including reducing fresh water use and reusing existing materials for construction. Because of the region's arid climate, significant amounts of water are used during road base preparation, particularly for dust suppression. Rather than use the city's water sources available at no cost to WIPP, the team thought to reuse clean storm water held in evaporation ponds. For road base materials, the team took advantage of an extensive amount of caliche, a hardened deposit of calcium carbonate, from a salt storage evaporation pond on site. Recycled asphalt product was used for paving. Together, these actions avoided $150,000 in construction costs, 9.7 billion Btu of energy, 340,000 gallons of fresh water, and the equivalent of 640 million tons carbon dioxide. The project also enhanced the safety of the road and allows for a shorter delivery route, saving fuel and avoiding additional associated GHG emissions.

Teri Harris
Tim Porter
Golden Field Office
IT Energy Management During Explosive Growth

In FY 2010, the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy's Golden Field Office (GO) faced a major challenge. The site required significant increases in staffing to process and monitor American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding while also trying to reduce energy consumption. GO's IT staff employed an innovative virtualization strategy, consisting of consolidating and moving dozens of physical servers to virtual servers to reduce the hardware required in GO's data center. They also replaced energy-sapping computers with virtual desktops and invested in energy-efficient in-row chillers and infrastructure software and hardware to monitor energy consumption. GO's data center now efficiently supports more than 300 virtual desktop computers and 50 virtual servers. As a result, GO IT energy consumption was reduced by 61% even though the number of users on its network increased by 152% from FY 2008. This effort saved approximately 3.0 billion Btu and more than $88,000 in FY 2010 alone while also enhancing IT security and reducing desktop support. The project's success has led to two other local DOE offices moving to GO's virtual servers.

Sheila Causby
Mark Fletcher
Leslie Manning
Paul Simmons
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
GreenIT at Oak Ridge National Laboratory

In FY 2010, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Green Information Technology (GreenIT) initiative completed campus-wide deployment of a computer power management software application that saved 8.1 billion Btu in less than six months. FY 2010 energy cost savings of $143,043 more than covered the project cost. ORNL's Information Technology Services Division first conducted a limited pilot of the software in two buildings undergoing energy retrofits. The pilot established that the software, along with use of smart power strips, centralized printers, photocopiers, and fax machines, saved about 10% of total building energy use and reduced night and weekend energy use by 50%. A complete lab-wide rollout was accomplished entirely through the proactive efforts of existing IT staff in addition to their existing responsibilities. GreenIT's computer power management strategy is now institutionalized into ORNL's IT mission and standard practices. The software has been well received by ORNL's diverse and highly IT-dependent workforce, demonstrating that this strategy is transferable to even the challenging computing environments of Federal facilities.

Shawna Rosenkrance
Todd Shepherd
Idaho Operations Office
Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center Water System

The original existing raw water distribution system supply pumps at the Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center (INTEC) became too big for the site's needs, producing too much water and using too much electricity even with minimum operation of a single pump. Additionally, four smaller pumps were used to operate a reverse osmosis (RO) system to prevent calcium carbonate buildup in the water distribution system. In FY 2010, the team replaced the two large pumps with smaller pumps and added an anti-fouling chemical to the raw water to prevent calcium carbonate build up in the piping to eliminate the RO system. These modifications reduced electricity and water use by 76% and 30% from their respective baselines, equating to savings of 5.7 billion Btu and 150 million gallons of water annually. The project was awarded an Idaho Power Custom Efficiency incentive rebate for more than $162,000—the largest incentive ever awarded in the southeastern Idaho region, which helped shorten payback to less than two years.

Larry Cumberland
Robert Gallegos
Jeffrey Mousseau
Gary Robinson
Idaho National Laboratory
Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project

The Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project (AMWTP) located at INL repackages waste from containers that do not meet Department of Transportation (DOT) shipping regulations into acceptable 55-gallon containers. AMWTP houses DOE's only supercompactor, which exerts 2,000 tons of force to process mixed transuranic waste for volume reduction. The supercompactor is capable of compacting a 55-gallon drum to roughly one-fifth its original size, resulting in a reduction of waste volume for transportation, increased efficiency of transportation, and more efficient use of limited space in the permanent geological repository at DOE's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico. In FY 2010, the compaction of waste resulted in a total volume reduction of more than 2,000 cubic meters, which avoids the need to expand the repository, reduces generator wastes created at WIPP, and reduces handling activities. Repackaging of waste also reduced the number of shipments required by 360, increasing shipping efficiency by about 40%. This process saved 200,520 gallons of diesel fuel in FY 2010 and avoided GHG emissions equivalent to more than 2,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide.

Christopher Evans
Sandia National Laboratories

Christopher Evans leads initiatives to identify energy and water-saving opportunities at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Livermore, California. He helped the two locations develop innovative projects that achieve annual savings of 260 billion Btu, 40 million gallons of water, and $1.7 million in costs. He also worked on several high-profile sustainability initiatives that benefit the entire Federal Government, including the development of the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007 Section 432 guidance for identifying energy and water efficiency measures in covered facilities; the EISA online compliance tracking system; and the FEMP GHG reporting tool used by all agencies to submit GHG inventories to the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ).

Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Near-Zero Materials Waste and Beyond

Integrating its 4R philosophy — Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Re-buy — into daily practice is a key element of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) objective of becoming a near-zero waste campus. By making the 4Rs an integral part of its operations, NREL considers product life from cradle-to-cradle and promotes a balance among environmental, social, and financial con­siderations. Everyday reminders of the role of the 4Rs at NREL include the Reusable Office Supply Depot, strategically placed recycling stations that allow commingling of recyclable materials, and campus-wide campaigns promoting recycling and composting. Green purchasing practices are the basis of reducing waste and govern how goods and services are acquired at NREL. In a two-year period, NREL increased its purchases of recycled-content products by 350%.

NREL clearly demonstrates that wastes created do not have to be destined for landfills. NREL diverted 76% of its municipal solid waste and 72% of its construction and demolition materials and debris from being landfilled. The DOE goal is diverting 50% of both types of waste from disposal.

Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Building the Sustainable Campus of the Future

Building on its 33-year history as the only Federal laboratory solely dedicated to the research, development, commercialization, and deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies, NREL has consistently been a living laboratory. NREL integrates the technologies it developed into its new and existing facilities to build a sustainable campus that balances environmental, social, and economic goals.

A significant indicator of NREL's commitment to sustainability is its reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Deploying on-site renewable energy projects offsets more than 4,300 megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity and 7,400 million Btu of natural gas purchases, which, combined with purchasing renewable energy certificates, resulted in campus carbon neutrality in 2010. The GHG emission reductions were achieved through programs, policies, and physical enhancements that touched on use of alternative fleet vehicles, telecommuting and compressed work schedule opportunities, campus-wide recycling and composting programs, and construction of high-performance buildings. NREL's Campus Master Plan guides its investments in sustainability as it anticipates an 83% increase in personnel and a 240% increase in its footprint.

Office of Environmental Management
East Tennessee Technology Park
Sustainability in Onsite Shipping

Uniquely applying off-the-shelf radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to the onsite shipping of wastes to a landfill, the East Tennessee Technology Park created a paperless shipping process, improved air quality, and allowed more shipments each day. Each waste shipment required eight paper forms. In addition, trucks were idling as the paperwork was being completed and during the truck inspection process. Implementing the RFID system removed the need for paper forms and eliminated 25 minutes of truck idling time—resulting in avoiding roughly 260,000 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and eliminating the use of 12,000 gallons of diesel fuel. An additional but unanticipated benefit of the RFID was a reduction in shipping information errors.

RFID safety and security features include a real time dashboard display that provides alerts if trucks do not complete runs in the maximum allowed time and transportation alerts if the truck is over weight limits. Cost savings to date attributable to the RFID technology are estimated at $8.7 million. The RFID paperless shipping technology has already been adopted by several DOE sites because of the benefits it provides.

Savannah River Site
Renewable Energy Technology Development, Deployment, and Education in South Carolina—A Collaboration between Savannah River National Laboratory and the Economic Development Partnership of South Carolina

Joining forces, the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) and the Economic Development Partnership of South Carolina (EDPSC) develop and deploy renewable energy technologies within the local community and South Carolina. SRNL shares its expertise and knowledge of renewable energy technologies, and EDPSC leverages its existing relationships with industry to identify and evaluate specific deployment opportunities to lower harmful air emissions.

A cornerstone of the collaboration is the Center for Hydrogen Research. Funded by Aiken County through private investment, the Center provides research and development space for more than 80 engineers and scientists from SRNL, commercial companies, and universities in support of its mission to develop and deploy hydrogen and renewable energy technologies for local, state, and national missions. Hydrogen-powered vehicles, a regenerative fuel cell, and an advanced offshore wind characterization technology have been deployed in the region due to the partnership's efforts. In addition, the SRNL-EDPSC collaboration developed fully integrated wind, solar, hydrogen, and smart grid educational platforms designed to educate K-12 students and train future South Carolina installers of renewable energy technology.

Savannah River Site
Tritiated Debris Remediation Project

Designing and receiving regulatory approval for a thermal heating treatment process that effectively removes tritium from rubble and soil accelerated cleanup at a portion of the Savannah River Site by six years. The pilot study involved reusable thermal detritiation treatment cells that were readily fabricated using common, inexpensive construction materials and commercially available process control and heating equipment.

The thermal detritiation process heats soil to a temperature of 212°F and concrete to 1,500°F, resulting in treated concrete and soils that can be disposed on-site. Onsite disposal versus offsite disposal results in more than $1.6 million in transportation cost avoidance, exclusive of any additional packaging and handling requirements, and avoids over 400,000 truck miles. The remediation site and pilot study became a living laboratory, allowing development, proof-of-principle, and implementation of an innovative, cost-effective technology now available for use at other remediation sites. The thermal detritiation treatment cells will treat a total of 3,500 cubic yards (equivalent to 200 trailer truck loads) of contaminated concrete and soils.

Office of Fossil Energy
Strategic Petroleum Reserve
Buy It Green—BIG

Forming a cross-functional performance improvement team of experts from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in procurement, property, environmental, engineering, construction, and data systems and charging it with developing an integrated solution to ensure compliance with sustainable acquisition requirements led to Buy It Green—BIG. Developed in-house using a Microsoft SharePoint platform, BIG is an easily accessible intranet source of purchase requirements along with input forms for purchase documentation to allow for tracking and reporting.

BIG leads SPR employees and its prime contractor and sub-contractors to purchase products that have low or zero waste potential; have high recycled content; are produced and delivered in an environmentally sustainable manner; and demonstrate maximum durability, biodegradability, reparability, energy efficiency, non-toxicity, or recyclability. Senior management support for BIG highlighted the significance of buying green and made it clear that buying green was not an option but a requirement. BIG brought big results as SPR achieved 100% affirmative procurement of environmentally preferred products and 100% procurement of Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT)-certified products in 2010.

National Nuclear Security Administration
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Site 300 Sulfur Hexafluoride Reduction Project

Reclaiming and reusing sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) and developing monitoring systems that warn of the potential for SF6 releases allowed Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to decrease its annual release of the GHG at its Flash X-Ray (FXR) facility from 5,000 pounds to 115 pounds. SF6, considered the most potent GHG, has a global warming potential approximately 23,000 times that of CO2 when compared over a 100 year period, resulting in one pound of SF6 having the same global warming impact of 11 tons of CO2. The FXR system is an induction linear accelerator used to produce x-rays for the production of high-speed radiographic images of the explosions (implosions) of high explosives.

After determining that alternatives to SF6 are not feasible at the FXR, the operations team focused on minimizing its use to the greatest extent possible. The team achieved the substantial reduction in SF6 release by significantly reducing the amount of gas released during maintenance operations and by purifying the retained gas to extend its life. In addition, the team's operational changes resulted in FXR operational benefits and motivated other researchers to minimize their SF6 use.

Pantex Plant
Elimination of Chlorine Gas to Protect Workers and the Environment

Researching options for more safely disinfecting its raw groundwater prior to entering the Pantex Plant distribution system led to eliminating the significant hazards associated with shipping, handling, and using chlorine. Technical grade chlorine gas is a highly effective means of disinfecting water, but it and its byproducts are highly toxic and corrosive for oral, dermal, eye, and inhalation effects (they are included in the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxicity Category I, indicating the highest degree of acute toxicity). Given the risks, potential liabilities, and available safer alternatives, it made good business sense to cease Pantex's bulk use of chlorine gas.

A Pantex team determined that a MIOX (mixed oxide) system would provide numerous advantages over chlorine gas while providing protection against microbial pathogens. Although care must be taken to ensure that the system is operating properly, the MIOX system is better for the environment than a chlorine gas system. Eliminating the use of chlorine gas also minimizes one of the largest and most dangerous potential emergency management impacts for a hazardous material release at the Pantex Plant; chlorine gas released to the atmosphere would pose an extreme health hazard to Pantex personnel.

Sandia National Laboratories/New Mexico
High Performance Computing Water Reduction and Energy Efficient Cooling

Collaboration between the Sandia National Laboratories (SNL)/New Mexico Compute System Design and Implementation Team, which tended to purchase systems based solely on the compute cycle technical requirements, and the Corporate Computing Facilities Infrastructure Team, which was usually subsequently brought in to "make it work" in the designated location, resulted in goals that the newest supercomputer be faster than its predecessor and designed to maximize its eco-efficiency by using cutting edge technological innovations. The new Red Sky supercomputer achieved the goal of being faster; it is ranked as the 10th fastest computer in the world, capable of conducting more than 500 trillion mathematical operations per second.

Red Sky also achieved its eco-efficiency goal through detailed procurement specifications that required energy efficiency. Red Sky has a carbon footprint of 203 metric tons of CO2 equivalent compared to its predecessor's 912 metric tons and features a unique cooling system that is more than 95% efficient in cooling the system's multitude of computer racks. Red Sky uses 15% less power than its predecessor and achieves a power usage effectiveness of 1.27. The new supercomputer also uses 40% less water, resulting in a savings of more than 5 million gallons annually.

Sandia National Laboratories/New Mexico
Integrated Sustainability Planning and Design

Identifying, prioritizing, and funding cost-effective projects that contribute to achieving the sustainable energy and water goals of SNL/New Mexico are eased through an integrated process that links the planning, selection, and execution of research and development initiatives with its site infrastructure projects. A corporate strategy that supports the integrated process is reducing existing power and water demands to the greatest extent possible, which then allows more flexibility in managing the remaining demand.

Every four years SNL/New Mexico completes energy and water management audits on the top 75% of its energy-consuming buildings. The audits generate a building-specific list of energy- and water-related deficiencies and opportunities to eliminate or reduce demand or use the resource more efficiently. Using energy and water more efficiently is also supported through a site commitment to achieving Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) certifications for SNL/New Mexico buildings. Integrated planning and design resulted in $1 million in cost savings from 2010 investments, an overall reduction of approximately 3% in energy intensity per year, 10% of building square footage that is LEED certified, and a clear plan to achieving SNL/New Mexico's sustainability goals.

Sandia National Laboratories/New Mexico and California
Water Consumption Reduction

Metering 100% of water use, conducting water use surveys, and committing to reduce water use allowed SNL to reduce its aggregate water intensity by 30% based on the 2007 baseline. SNL/New Mexico's site reduced its irrigation use by more than 50% through a centralized irrigation control system.

A water balance study showed that approximately 25% of the water used at the New Mexico site is for cooling and 35% of water usage was attributed to the need for ultra-pure water for some equipment. The study resulted in installation of a high-efficiency reverse osmosis system, a deionized water recycle system, and a cooling tower water reclamation system that significantly reduced annual water use. To address the limiting impact of the site's water chemistry on the amount of water used for cooling, the site instituted a pilot project using a nonchemical cooling tower treatment system that increased cooling tower cycles from 3.2 to 4.5 contributing to water as well as energy savings.

Y-12 National Security Complex
Waste Not Want Not; Y-12's Comprehensive, Cost-Effective Recycling Program

Linking the Y-12 National Security Complex's Waste Management; Infrastructure Reduction; Environmental Compliance; Legal; Property; Construction; Radcon; Facilities, Infrastructure and Services; and Production organizations with responsibilities and impacts on recycling through the Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle Team created the framework for an integrated, campus-wide recycling program. In 2010, Y-12 implemented 84 initiatives that resulted in reusing or recycling almost 110 million pounds of materials — more than 89% of its total solid industrial waste stream. The avoided cost from these activities is estimated at $4.73 million.

The team adopted Y-12's "7S" process (Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardize, Safety, Security, and Sustain), which facilitates the addition of new materials to the Y-12 Recycling Program; LED lights and sodium hydroxide bottles were added in 2010. The Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle Team is also forward thinking in that it reaches out to other organizations and programs on the front-end of their project planning to help identify materials that can ultimately be recycled rather than disposed in landfills.

Power Marketing Administration
Bonneville Power Administration
Energy Smart Federal Partnership Project

Using utility energy service contracts (UESCs) and inter-agency agreements to contract with other Federal agencies for energy services, Bonneville Power Administration's (BPA) Energy Smart Federal Partnership completed energy efficiency projects for 21 Federal agencies. Since 2001, this partnering has saved more than 170 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy per year, as well achieving reductions in gas, steam, and water use throughout the Pacific Northwest. All of these savings were achieved for roughly $63 million, $26 million of which came from BPA electric energy efficiency rebates. In 2009 alone, more than 30 million kWh per year was saved by Federal agencies along with more than 2 billion gallons of water per year.

Through the partnership, hundreds of Federal facilities are audited with the results being used to design and develop energy saving projects. Projects may be funded through BPA or BPA may provide assistance in securing private, third-party financing for large-scale projects. In some cases the partnership helped implement projects by direct purchase of energy efficiency measures. Through its Drop Shipment Program, the partnership provides ENERGY STAR compact fluorescent lamps to Federal facilities through the Pacific Northwest as replacements for incandescent lamps.

Office of Science
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
LEED-EB Effort, LEED by Example, Going for Gold Lab-wide

Ensuring that the lessons learned in certifying an existing office building to the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Existing Building (LEED-EB) Gold level informed future certifications of similar buildings, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) documented the efforts of its multi-disciplinary planning and design team as it identified energy- and water-efficient products and systems changes to Building 1059. One of those changes is a network of sensors and controls that allows modulation of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) to maximize efficiency. It also trends the building's total electricity consumption and water usage and provides that information to building occupants. Additional sustainable features include enhanced lighting control, roofing upgrade, and low-flow plumbing upgrades. Sustainable practices that the team incorporated while retrofitting Building 1059 included source reduction, material salvage and reuse, and recycling.

The manual resulting from the Building 1059 certification process will streamline the LEED-EB certification of other existing buildings as ORNL works to achieve its goal of having at least 10 buildings LEED-EB certified by 2014.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Getting to the Core of Sustainability

Integrating the site environmental stewardship programs at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is facilitated through the Environmental Management System (EMS) Core Team. The mission of the EMS Core Team is formalizing PNNL's various sustainability programs into an effective, efficient, and transformational operational model.

To encourage the collaboration and communication the model requires, the EMS Core Team is composed of representatives from PNNL's research community and the program leaders who are responsible for complying with the requirements of recent executive orders surrounding pollution prevention, GHG emission reductions, fleet management, information technology, and energy and water use reduction. This composition allows PNNL's operations experts and researchers to freely collaborate—operations staff draw on researchers' innovative ideas and researchers have the opportunity to pilot their technologies in a scalable operating environment. An outcome of this collaboration is building managers' use of a PNNL-developed advanced supervision and diagnostic tool that reduces energy use and operations and maintenance costs, and extends equipment life.

National Nuclear Security Administration
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Global Security Paperless eSystems Save Time, Money, and the Environment

Converting the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Global Security Principal Directorate's processes for move requests, travel approvals, and employee transfers to paperless eSystems saved paper, staff time, and money. Before the eSystems were in place, each move request (more than 3,000 a year for matters such as changes in office and computer locations, phone service, and door locks) required three different paper forms. Each travel request (about 4,000 a year) required seven approvals and several of the divisions in the directorate had different travel approval processes. Tracking the movement of employees into and out of the Global Security Principal Directorate was similarly difficult under a paper-based system.

Moving to the eSystems for move requests, travel, and employee transfers required teaming with all affected administrative units and stakeholder representatives and resulted in streamlining processes and improving communications between service organizations. Integrating the teams' work into the eSystems led to reduced labor costs and improved productivity, efficiency, and accountability.

Y-12 National Security Complex
Clean Steam Team

Replacing a coal-fired boiler steam plant at the Y-12 National Security Complex with a new centralized steam plant produced significant environmental and human health benefits. The steam distribution system, which weaves together approximately seven miles of piping, supplies more than 100 facilities throughout the site.

The switch from coal to natural gas to generate the same amount of steam will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 11% and nitrous oxide emissions by 72%. In addition to lowering GHG emissions, using natural gas instead of coal will reduce sulfur dioxide by 99.5% and particulate matter by 72%. Additional benefits are the elimination of 5,000 tons of coal ash (resulting from the 51,000 tons of coal burned each year), more than 450,000 vehicle miles traveled annually to transport coal and coal ash, wastewater treatment costing $800,000, and stormwater runoff from the coal pile. To further advance environmental stewardship, the new steam plant was constructed on a brownfield site, which gave new purpose to a potentially contaminated piece of property.

Office of Science
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
ORNL Goes Beyond Comprehensive Energy and Fleet Management to Comprehensive Sustainability Management

Capitalizing on its research and development in leading edge and transformational technologies as well as foundational and known technologies, ORNL created the Sustainable Campus Initiative (SCI) to provide an overarching support structure to capture and apply current efforts on-site and accelerate future implementation of energy and transportation technologies. The multi-organizational and multi-disciplinary SCI is positioned to integrate cutting-edge technologies with operational and business processes to ensure maximum integration of sustainability in ORNL's energy and fleet management.

Examples of the impact of SCI include ORNL's constructing more than a million square feet of LEED-certified office and laboratory space. Extensive energy audits have been conducted and buildings have been upgraded to be highly energy efficient. The energy requirements of computers have been significantly lowered through implementation of automated electronics management programs. In addition, the ORNL fleet has been expanded to include hybrid, electric, and flex-fuel vehicles and solar-assisted charging stations for electric vehicles have been created.

* At the time these awards were given, they were called the DOE Energy Management and Environmental Sustainability (EStar) Awards.