Making new habits
ESP Program
targets energy usage
One
way to break old habits is to make new ones. That's the idea behind the Energy
Savings Potential (ESP) Program, a collaborative effort between UNO and the
Omaha Public Power District (OPPD).
From discussions that began in 2005, the ESP
Program was formally inaugurated at the start of UNO's fall 
semester of 2006 and
recently reported the results of its first year.
"We've seen an incredibly quick response to
our request for research proposals, as well as many opportunities for
additional research," says B.J. Reed, dean of the College of Public Affairs and
Community Service, which is administering the program on behalf of UNO and
OPPD.
The program is designed to be a campus-wide
initiative exploring how the demand for energy by individuals and small
businesses may be substantially reduced by finding ways to motivate individuals
and businesses to apply existing technologies for energy conservation.
Some of the benefits of a successful ESP
Program:
• Residential and business consumers save
money, including those whose energy costs consume the major portion of their
monthly earnings; and,
• Energy producers can do more with current
levels of energy production, lessening or eliminating the need to build costly
new energy-generating facilities.
Highlights of the first year of the five-year
program include the submission of nearly a dozen research projects, the
near-completion of two accepted projects and the successful launch of a third.
The Energy Forum Program Assessment project
has yielded a comprehensive report of what impacts forum attendees the most and
what they found most useful in the energy kits they received, information that
will help energy forum planners better target future audiences. The project was
conducted by the Center for Public Affairs Research and the Center for
Organizational Research and Evaluation (CORE).
Jerome Deichert, director of the Center for
Public Affairs Research, says the final report on the Energy Forum Program
Assessment is a useful tool in determining what motivates individuals to change
their behavior and adopt energy saving products and habits.
"For example, when introduced to compact
fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs, people really did use them," Deichert says.
"When one was included in the energy kit that the forum attendees received, our
follow-up surveys indicated the use of CFLs was a major, positive result.
People considered them the most useful item they received, and their behavior
changed in that they started purchasing them."
The project assessed the impact of energy
forums conducted throughout the state by the Nebraska Energy Assistance
Network, a statewide coalition of utilities, governmental agencies, regulators
and community leaders.
The Financial and Tax Incentives for Energy
Conservation project is expected to yield a unique database of energy incentive
programs and an analysis of their success.
Led by Associate Professor Kenneth A. Kriz,
program director in the School of Public Administration, the project is to accomplish
five tasks:
• Document existing incentives;
• Analyze the success of incentives;
• Document the economics of incentives and
conservation;
• Analyze the psychology of incentives and
conservation; and,
• Generate recommendations for future financial
and tax incentives.
Kriz says once a database is assembled and the
information is examined, "we hope to generate a list of what incentives have
worked, and why."
The Energy Efficiency and Sustainability: A
Neighborhood-Based Approach to Improving Aging Housing Stock in Omaha project
has begun conducting energy ratings of dozens of homes in the Morton Meadows
neighborhood of midtown Omaha, laying the groundwork for a study that may lead
to the implementation of energy-efficient practices in older homes on a
city-wide basis.
The research team, led by Robert Blair, an
associate professor at the School of Public Administration, intends to teach
Omaha neighborhood associations how conducting comprehensive energy ratings
will help them develop plans to improve the efficiency of older homes.
Daniel Lawse (pictured above), a graduate
student in community and regional planning at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln, is the energy outreach associate with the Neighborhood Center
for Greater Omaha (NCGO), which is serving as a partner in the project. Lawse
is the project's technical expert on energy conservation methods and
technology.
Other project personnel include NCGO Executive
Director Ron Abdouch, NCGO Assistant Director Crystal Rhodes, and Loren Ditsch,
a grad student in urban studies at UNO.
The ESP Program is proving its value in
several ways. "We have seen many examples of untapped research that are gaining
momentum and could soon become projects within the program," Reed says. "And we
continue to encourage the formal proposal of projects that will help us attain
the program goals."
Adrian Minks, vice president of essential
services at OPPD, says the energy provider, which is funding the program at up
to $500,000 a year for five years, is pleased by the quality of the research
conducted to date.
"We feel the program will be extremely
beneficial in helping OPPD and other energy companies identify what motivates
people to change their behavior and begin to implement more energy-saving
measures," she says. "We have already received several ideas and practices that
will be useful."
Additional information on the ESP Program can
be found online at www.unomaha.edu/energyprogram/.
CPACS home continues extreme makeover
The "extreme makeover" that is changing the
former Engineering Building into the new home of the College of Public Affairs
and Community Service is progressing on schedule.
While some work is visible from the outside of
the building as additions are taking shape on the north and south sides, the
majority of the changes are underway inside.
"What you see from the outside is just a small
portion of the overall project,' says Brad Govig, vice president and senior
project manager at W. Boyd Jones Construction Co.
Outside, the additions are being enclosed. New
window systems are being installed and the roofs will be added next.
Inside, long hallways and rows of anonymous
classroom and office doors are being replaced with open areas, seminar and
meeting rooms, multi-use classrooms and offices where the emphasis is on space
separated by little more than light and glass.
"Much of the south wing walls are in and we're
putting the ceilings in on both the first and second levels," Govig says. "The
north corridor rooms are being drywalled and soon we'll be painting."
HDR, Inc. provided the architectural design.
Completion is planned for August 2008.
"It's going to be a very nice facility," Govig
says. "Unique architecturally, yet functional."
