Abstract:

During the 2013-2016 triennium, the University of the Basque Country (UPV / EHU) was involved in the “Erasmus University Educators for Sustainable Development” project and as a result of that participation, Campus Bizia Lab (CBL) program emerged at this university. This CBL initiative seeks to trigger a collaborative process between academic staff, service and administrative staff and students (multidisciplinary approach) in order to respond to sustainability challenges within the university.

The Faculty of Engineering Vitoria-Gasteiz, belonging to UPV/EHU, has been participating since 2019 in that CBL program trying to optimize the energy consumption used for the air conditioning of the Faculty. It was built in 1959, and even having been remodeled in 1997, it continues showing significant thermal deficiencies depending on the area being analysed.

To develop this project, several Final Year Projects have been carried out with students of the different degrees and masters of the Faculty. We have been working on several lines:
(1) the monitoring of some areas of the Faculty to learn about the thermal comfort data,
(2) the development of a low-cost pilot program that allows the collection of these data autonomously, and
(3) the analysis of the thermal efficiency of the building itself.

With all that information, we can now start proposing specific actions, some of them low-cost and others not so much, which would allow saving around 40% of the current consumption of energy if applied to the entire building. Subsequently, it would be interesting if some of these measures could be implemented in other Faculties of the campus in order to obtain an action procedure guide to achieve a sustainable campus and a benchmark for energy improvements in buildings dedicated to education and research.

Our work proposal fits with several of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) included in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which was approved by the United Nations General Assembly.

Keywords:

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), energy consumption, collaborative project, thermal efficiency.