The University of Hawaii at Manoa said its $34.3 million electrical bill for 2014 would have been $3.4 million higher if not for recent energy efficiency efforts.

Starting in 2007, UH-Manoa has reduced its electricity bill with more efficient lighting and air conditioning as well as photovoltaic systems.

The school has been able to cut energy use despite adding 300,000 square feet of new construction at its flagship campus.

"The university is about the future and how we prepare the people that come here for the future," said Stephen Meder, UH-Manoa interim assistant vice chancellor, planning and facilities. "How we become a model for 21st-century solutions." 

For 2015 the university expects to save $3 million more with the installation of a 1.5- to 2-megawatt PV system.

The university added solar to its energy mix in 2012 when it installed a 45-kilowatt solar array at one of the campus’s oldest buildings, Gartley Hall.

That same year UH-Manoa installed a 240-kilowatt system, signing a power purchase agreement with SolarCity to provide solar energy to UH-Manoa’s Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology on Coconut Island for the next 20 years. The savings over the life of the contract are expected to be as much as $2.3 million.

The campus also retrofitted air conditioning, lighting and building controls at several facilities to cut its energy use.

The university renovated Gartley Hall and Edmondson Hall as well as two dorms, Johnson Hall and Gateway House. The campus is making major renovations at Snyder Hall and Kuykendall Hall.

The university requested $40 million for fiscal year 2017 from the state to renovate Kuykendall Hall. With the new design, no fossil fuel will be used to power the building.

The 80,000-square-foot building of classrooms and offices will be designed to use 60 to 70 percent less of the energy it currently uses and will have the remaining demand taken care of by PV.

"Let’s look at this as a model for renovation for this campus, this university and this state," Meder said.

A combined effort among experts from the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, UH staff and students has them doing modeling for Kuykendall Hall to better understand comfort and how the building can provide a comfortable environment with minimal energy use.

"We adopted a new standard for comfort," Meder said. "It is a standard of comfort that says people in this climate zone are comfortable within this range, which is different than what air-conditioning systems do."

Doorae Shin said the students want the change.

"Everyone wants it. A lot of people are just uncomfortable in these buildings. They’re cold and they’re bright," said Shin, a sustainability studies major at UH-Manoa. "It doesn’t need to be that cold. We live in the most comfortable climate in the whole country, and the temperature here is perfect. I think that they are starting to recognize how silly it is and how wasteful it is to make people uncomfortable while also wasting money and energy."

Since the university began its energy efficiency efforts in 2007, UH Manoa has added several energy-efficient buildings to the campus, including the Warrior Recreational Center, the UH IT Center, Freer Hall, Dance Studio and Ching Field. The university used recycled materials in the building process, including recycled flooring, cabinets, countertops, bathroom partitions and furniture.

A part of the addition is the Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education, or C-MORE Hale. The building was awarded a green building certification that recognizes best building practices.

The building has solar panels, a green roof, a garden on top of the roof to help cool the facility, skylights and a solar water heater.

In January 2014 the Board of Regents unanimously approved committing the university to sustainability, setting goals to achieve carbon neutrality, zero waste and local food self-sufficiency.

Shin was one of the students who testified before the Board of Regents about the sustainability policy.

"To have them vote unanimously in support and being so stoked with us is just so reassuring. It gives us so much hope," Shin said.