Valencia College has been successful with reducing energy consumption through a focus of high performance building construction. Energy-efficient retrofits and incorporating behavioral changes. Since 2008 using these different strategies the College has reduced its KBTU per square foot by 49%.

KBTU Per Square Foot Fiscal Years 2004 – 2016

Year	2004-2005	2005-2006	2006-2007	2007-2008	2008-2009	2009-2010	2010-2011	2011-2012	2012-2013	2013-2014	2014-2015	2015-2016
Total KBTU	136,138	149,245	145,574	151,639	149,784	150,432	128,048	109,489	107,502	107,910	107,489	105,384
Total SqFt	1,609,842	1,565,336	1,561,591	1,564,797	1,662,690	1,768,858	1,779,341	1,779,341	2,086,393	2,145,410	2,145,410	2,145,472
MBTU/SqFt	0.0846	0.0953	0.0932	0.0969	0.0901	0.0850	0.0720	0.0615	0.0515	0.0503	0.0501	0.0491
KBTU/Sq/Ft	84.57	95.34	93.22	96.91	90.09	85.04	71.96	61.53	51.53	50.30	50.10	49.12

In 2006, Valencia made a commitment to new construction standards to include LEED Silver equivalent or above certification, High Efficiency Chiller Plants, Building Automation and Lighting Control Systems, Retro-commissioning and Upgrades. Following our new construction guidelines, the College was awarded with six LEED Gold equivalent buildings and two LEED Silver equivalent retrofit projects.

After the first high-efficiency chiller plant was installed, there was a significant increase in water consumption. The local utility company informed the college that a 50% increase in water charges would occur over the next five years. Since the cooling towers are the largest consumers of water, six different systems were evaluated over the course of a year. A new technology water-treatment system using high cycles and minimal blowdown was selected and implemented at the West Campus. The billed-water savings were enormous. The following study shows water consumption before and after installation. Since implementation Valencia West Campus has saved approximately 40 million gallons of billed water. Because of these results the system has been implemented college-wide with billed water savings of approximately 20 million gallons per year. Another caveat of this system is Legionella test results at all locations are undetected.