By Lindsey Coulter

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The University of North Carolina at Charlotte has broken ground on the first phase of a $70 million expansion of Jerry Richardson Stadium, a project that will add 20,000 square feet and increase stadium capacity by about 20%.

RMF Engineering is leading MEP engineering for the project, with Barton Malow serving as construction manager. McMillan Pazdan Smith Architecture is the lead designer in collaboration with SLAM. Completion is expected in spring 2027.

“This project is a statement about who we are and where we are headed. It reflects the momentum we are building in academics, research and athletics,” Chancellor Sharon L. Gaber said at the groundbreaking ceremony on Aug. 27. “And it signals a new era for Charlotte football. Charlotte is ready to compete — and to win — on every stage.”

The expansion includes construction of a new tower above the existing press box. The tower will feature a training room for athletes, a new press box for broadcasters, and premium seating options such as seven luxury suites, loge boxes, ledge seating, an indoor private club and a terrace.

On game days, the tower will provide fans with state-of-the-art amenities. On non-game days, those areas will convert into team meeting and dining space. The facility also will allow student-athletes year-round dining access and enable Charlotte Athletics to host additional community events.

Approximately 2,400 seats will be added in the east concourse above the student section, bringing total capacity to around 17,700. The expansion is projected to generate nearly $2 million annually, more than doubling the university’s ticket revenue.

Interest in Charlotte football is surging. Head coach Tim Albin’s inaugural season and a six-game home schedule contributed to record demand for 2025, with the program selling out season tickets for the first time. Renewal rates among existing season ticket holders also reached an all-time high.

“What an incredible day for Charlotte Athletics, for our University and our community,” athletics director Mike Hill said. “The response to our expansion plan has been nothing short of tremendous. Now, this plan begins to take shape. Over the next two seasons, with as little interruption to the game-day experience as possible, our team will be hard at work delivering something truly special.”

While Richardson Stadium’s capacity will not be impacted during construction, university officials anticipate some modifications to the game-day experience.

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Envisioning A Low-Carbon Future

The 2007 Presidents’ Climate Commitment launched a series of commitments whereby hundreds of colleges and universities across the United States pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While some institutions have made significant progress, many face considerable challenges in meeting established emissions reduction targets. Many modern-day universities manage a portfolio of buildings that vary widely in age and condition. Some struggle with outdated utility systems and even basic upgrades have become increasingly more expensive. As the list of deferred maintenance projects grows, resources for decarbonization efforts can fall short. Campus administrators must weigh a complex mix of competing factors to balance campus stewardship, continued growth, and market competitiveness while also trying to meet their carbon reduction goals.

The Case for Strategic Electrification

But the path to campus decarbonization often aligns with necessary maintenance and capital projects. For campuses in need of electrical system upgrades, preparing for strategic electrification is a step in the right direction. Given rapid technological advancements and the decreasing cost of renewable energy, heating system electrification can offer a practical, low-carbon alternative to fossil fuel-based systems. When combined with replacement of aging equipment, strategic electrification can significantly reduce carbon footprints while also addressing critical infrastructure upgrades, achieving operating cost and energy savings, and enhancing system reliability and redundancy.

In a more carbon-conscious world, strategic electrification isn’t just on the horizon – it’s happening. Currently about 40% of total United States electricity already comes from carbon-free sources, an even split between nuclear power and renewable resources (mostly wind, solar and hydropower.) Many cities, states, corporations, and institutions have announced ambitious dates by which they will use only 100% carbon-free electricity. States like New York are even banning natural gas hook-ups in all new construction to promote electrification as a proven path to decarbonization. In some locations, greenhouse gas emissions are tied to direct and indirect financial penalties. For many administrators, the need to build these costs into already-tight budgets will further strain their ability to prioritize ongoing and deferred maintenance projects.

Managing Risk, Planning for the Future

Robust, reliable electrical systems enable broader decarbonization goals. But upgrading campus electric systems in anticipation of electrifying campus heating and fleets is a costly undertaking that requires a multi-year strategy. With a conscientious approach, electrical upgrades can be woven throughout an institution’s existing strategic plans, capital plans, and system renewal programs. As universities plan deferred maintenance and equipment upgrades, preparing the campus electrical grid builds an essential foundation for a more seamless transition to a low-carbon future.

What does it mean to prepare a campus electrical system for a future in which carbon-free electricity powers nearly all of its buildings, vehicles, and equipment? It’s important to first understand the existing system capacity and constraints, both for the campus grid and the local utility provider. Projected campus growth, fleet electrification, and heating system loads should be quantified to estimate future load growth projections as the campus transitions from fossil fuels to electric technologies. Upgrades may include system voltage and capacity increases, transformer and switchgear upsizing, advanced controls sequences and demand management, and backup or redundancy measures. Electrical upgrade plans should be coordinated with the local utility provider based on their physical infrastructure, contractual agreements, and published integrated resource plans.

Efficient Technologies, Active Demand Management

Careful planning that anticipates future loads, equipment and demand can help inform strategies to manage electrical peaks, thereby reducing costs and potentially avoiding the need for certain costly electrical system upgrades.

Heat Pumps

Many campuses are electrifying their campus heating systems through a transition from steam heating distribution to hot water distribution and electric heat pumps. Heat pumps can capture and utilize “waste” heat from chilled water processes, building exhaust, or other sources or exchange heat with geo-exchange bore fields, surface water, wastewater and other constant temperature environments. By simply moving available heat to where it is needed, heat pumps achieve a coefficient of performance greater than one, meaning they provide more energy than they use. During ideal operating conditions, a heat pump can be up to 700% efficient!  Their incredible efficiency also helps manage electrical peaks. Facility operators often find that the new electrical peaks from winter heat pump operation are not much greater than the past peak due to summer chiller plant operation.

Renewable Electricity Production

As the cost of solar, wind and battery technologies begins to decline, renewable electricity is becoming a much more affordable form of electricity generation. This, along with policies like the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), help spur technological and financial innovation while making renewable energy technologies more mainstream and affordable. Campuses that deploy large, on site, renewable energy assets – like commercial-sized wind turbines or utility scale solar arrays – must plan how those generation sources will interconnect with the campus electrical system and any existing generation resources. Campus electrical upgrade projects can be an opportunity to think through what types of renewable energy technologies might be a good fit for the campus and design controls logic and system topology configurations to accommodate them.

Advanced Controls and Demand Response

Campus utility upgrades also provide the opportunity to modernize electrical control systems that allow for more precise demand management. Pairing modern controls with on-site backup generation often allows institutions to participate in partnerships with local utility providers that offer a lower electricity rate in exchange for the ability to reduce loads on the public grid during periods of peak demand.

Conclusion

The challenges faced by colleges and universities in achieving meaningful emissions reduction milestones are diverse and complex. The age of many institutions, combined with escalating costs and increasing maintenance needs, can seem like barriers to decarbonization. Strategic electrification of campus heating systems requires a multi-year plan and carefully phased implementation. But if done in coordination with other campus capital improvement and maintenance renewal, electrical upgrades can satisfy multiple institutional objectives enabling the transition to a low-carbon future.

Written by RMF Engineering’s Martha Larson, CEM, Director of Sustainability, and Andrew Hay, P.E., Division Manager, Infrastructure Engineering.

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ATLANTA — Atlanta-based Georgia Power awarded the Georgia Institute for Technology (Georgia Tech), also in Atlanta, with a $500,000 rebate check on July 14. The rebate is the largest ever issued through Georgia Power’s Commercial Energy Efficiency Program, and was given to Georgia Tech to mark the completion of its most recent effort to implement energy-efficiency upgrades at two facilities on campus. Georgia Power presented the rebate check to Georgia Tech at a special event at the Georgia Tech Environmental Biosystems Building.

Georgia Tech earned the rebate by completing various energy-efficiency upgrades that began in October 2015 and were completed in March of this year. The planning and design process for these upgrades began even earlier in June 2014, followed by an energy audit conducted by Johnson Controls (headquartered in Milwaukee, Wis.) in December 2014. The project had a budget of $7.7 million. Locally based RMF Engineering was the design engineer on the project, with multiple project committee and team members from Georgia Tech as part of the planning team.

The upgrades included upgrading water chillers that serve a large portion of the campus with , replacing existing motors with high-efficiency inverter-rated motors and conversions of condenser water pumps. Specifically, the project accomplished the following: RMF Engineering added a variable frequency drive (VFD) to one 2,000-ton chiller, converted four cooling tower fans to VFD drives, added 14 pumps with a VFD drive and replaced two 1,000-ton chillers with one 2,000-ton VFD chiller. Additionally, Georgia Tech received Georgia Power credit for a 3,000-ton VFD chiller that had been previously installed, which also impacted the amount of the rebate.

With the completion of these upgrades, Georgia Power estimates Georgia Tech will be able to save more than 16 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) annually. “Basically, the project was a chill water plant optimization scheme that allowed us to more efficiently make and distribute chilled water throughout the campus,” said Greg Spiro, P.E., CEM, senior design engineer for facilities management at Georgia Tech. “For example, by installing VFDs on pumps, chillers and support elements in the plant, we were able to provide more precise motor control, which greatly impacts energy usage.”

The primary objective for this project was to reduce the power consumed, per ton of cooling by reducing kilowatt used per ton (kw/ton) of campus chilled water production, according to Donald Alexander, P.E, RCDD, CEM, academic design professional for facilities management at Georgia Tech and project manager for the energy upgrades project. After Johnson Controls completed its audit in 2014, the Georgia Tech Committee evaluated the recommendations made by the company and decided what combination of measures were best.

“With a project and budget of this size, the development stage was a very important and intense portion of the initiative,” said Alexander. “There was significant negotiation of staying within budget parameters while also assuring that the required energy savings would be met.”

During both the planning and construction periods, the Georgia Tech Project Committee members met every two weeks to review progress and assess recommendations, according to Alexander. “The actual contracting process was a challenge for Georgia Tech, as performance contracting was new to the financial and legal teams of the Georgia Tech,” he said.

Alexander spent a significant amount of time and effort steering the project through the many phases of approval, added Spiro.

Georgia Power has awarded more than $44 million in rebates through the Commercial Energy Efficiency Program since the program started in 2011. The program includes educational resources, rebates and incentives available to all commercial customers such as school systems, universities, hospitals, museums and more.

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