Executive Order 88

In December 2012, when SUNY New Paltz President Don Christian signed the Campus Sustainability Plan, Governor Andrew Cuomo issued Executive Order 88 (EO88), which mandates a 20% improvement in the energy performance of state government buildings by April 2020, using the state fiscal year 2010-11 as a baseline.  Both of the the Campus Sustainability Plan and Executive Order 88 share common goals: reducing carbon emissions and overall energy consumption.

The Office of Campus Sustainability and Facilities Management are leading SUNY New Paltz’s efforts to comply with Executive Order 88.  The college is works closely with multiple state agencies, including the BuildSmart NY Implementation Team, NYPA, NYSERDA, and the SUNY System Office for Capital Facilities to implement the 20% energy reduction.

We are proud to report that SUNY New Paltz is ahead of the curve on many of EO88 Required Activities:

  • Required: Perform energy audits in underachieving buildings.
  • Accomplished: From 2011 to 2013, Facilities Management performed energy audits on the 10 campus buildings that consume the most amount of energy.
  • Required: Submeter all state-owned buildings greater than 100,000 square feet.
  • Accomplished: All buildings on campus greater than 2,000 square feet are submetered for electricity.  All buildings on campus greater than 5,000 square feet are submetered for water.  All non-residential buildings connected to the campus’ high temperature hot water (HTHW) system are metered.  Residence halls are being submetered for HTHW as they are renovated or constructed.  Over half of buildings on campus are metered for natural gas.
  • Required: Perform campus-wide Energy Master Plan.
  • In Process: SUNY New Paltz is among the first group of state-operated agencies completing the Energy Master Plan.

The following chart outlines the measures that are being tracked and monitored, average measures similar SUNY campuses across the state and our goals:

EO88 Baseline and Goal Chart

What is EUI?  EUI stands for Energy Use Intensity.  It’s a unit of measurement that describes a building’s energy use relative to its size.  Energy use includes electricity, natural gas, fuel oil used to provide electricity to buildings, heat hot water, and heat and cool buildings.

What’s Total Site EUI?  The total amount of energy consumed at the site per square foot.

What’s Total Source EUI?  Source energy takes into account fuels consumed in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity as well as energy losses from storing, distributing, and dispensing natural gas.  Source energy represents the total amount of raw fuel that is required to operate buildings or a site.  It incorporates all transmission, delivery, and production losses, thereby enabling a complete assessment of energy efficiency of a building or site.

What’s a SUNY University College?  It’s a classification of college in the SUNY System that includes SUNY New Paltz.  The other twelve university colleges in the SUNY System are Brockport, Buffalo State, Cortland, Fredonia, Geneseo, Old Westbury, Oneonta, Oswego, Plattsburg, Potsdam, and Purchase.  These colleges share in common residential campuses.  They do not have the higher energy consumption of medical campuses or large research programs like other SUNY universities.  (Empire State is technically considered a university college, but it focuses on distance learning so it has been excluded from the average SUNY university college EUI figures).