University of Illinois Facilities and Services

Energy Performance Contracting

Energy Performance Contracting (EPC) is a project delivery method focusing primarily on energy/utility reduction. The EPC process is a multiple contract process where the University contracts with a qualified Energy Service Company (ESCO) to provide all of the services required to design and implement a comprehensive project at the customer facility, from the initial energy audit through long-term guarantee of project savings. 

The university uses this process to manage complex facilities with high energy use, such as laboratories, making them energy efficient and addressing deferred maintenance issues along the way.

The Urbana campus has now executed over $100M of Energy Performance Contracting projects starting with the Veterinary Medicine facilities in 2010 which resulted in an estimated cost avoidance of $1M annually. A contract for the Oak Street Chiller Plant helped campus avoid an additional $1.2M annually. A project at Abbott Power Plant improved efficiencies for the gas boilers which results in approximately $200K in annual savings. Completed in 2019, five College of Engineering buildings helps campus avoid $1.5M per year. Construction is currently underway in 6 laboratory type buildings that is expected to save approximately $2M annually. To date, 17 buildings have been impacted by the EPC delivery method resulting in guaranteed savings of approximately $6M annually. 

Current Projects