Bob Wengel's job at Shedd Aquarium makes your typical thermostat war seem laughable.
For him, keeping everybody comfortable means manufacturing a 2 p.m. sunset for penguins attuned to the daylight rhythms of South America. It means maintaining 3 million gallons at a cool 58 degrees for blubber-laden whales while also satisfying tiny neon fish that won't tolerate less than 78 degrees.
"The first thing you've got to make sure is that your animals are happy," said Wengel, Shedd's vice president of facilities. "Then, your guests come next and, after that, the people who work here."
Until now it has also meant forking over $1.4 million for electricity and $154,000 for natural gas each year.
The Chicago cultural institution is in the early stages of a massive energy overhaul aimed at cutting energy consumption by half at the 83-year-old building. Under a plan developed pro bono by a public-private consortium, Shedd plans to swap out light bulbs, buy solar panels and sell "negawatts" (getting paid to power down) to the electrical grid to achieve its goal by 2020.
The idea: To create a road map other cultural institutions can follow.
"What we're talking about is bigger than the Shedd," said Mark Harris, president and CEO of the Illinois Science and Technology Coalition, which led the consortium that developed Shedd's energy saving plan.
The task won't be easy. Keeping 32,500 animals healthy, happy and well-lit takes a lot of, well, energy. Part zoo, part art space, the building is a life-support system for 1,500 species operating under the parameters of just about every time zone on the planet. Lighting clings to nearly every floor, ceiling and exhibit, mimicking sunlight, guiding visitors and attractively framing columns.
Most days a small ocean of water is chilled or run through heat exchangers, with excess heat released through cooling towers on the aquarium roof.
Staff members bike to work, diligently compost and exchange unwanted items instead of trashing them, and for years the aquarium has tracked its energy use and made changes where appropriate. Still, the energy consumed at Shedd has it claiming the carbon footprint of an endless 2,200-car traffic jam.
"If you ask me — 'What is sustainability?' — to someone like me who runs a facility, it's energy, waste, water," Wengel said.
In 2011, Shedd used so much energy that, if harnessed, it could power nearly 1,500 homes for a year.
If done right, Shedd's energy-shaving work will be mostly invisible.
Discerning visitors may notice a lighting change in Shedd's main entrance, where 600 light bulbs in the aquarium's octopuslike chandeliers were fitted this week with highly efficient LED bulbs, a change that will cut $7,000 a year off its electricity bills.
The sunlight that appears to grace the colorful, bustling exhibit of 450 reef dwellers just inside the main entrance is actually six LED lights that were first tested for their ability to mimic natural light.
"The solar on the rooftop will be visible," said Tom Hulsebosch, managing director for energy and utilities for West Monroe Partners in Chicago, the consulting firm that helped create Shedd's energy road map. "They might notice the subtlety of the LED lighting, but a lot of it is really behind the scenes."
Shedd's goal is to create an intelligent aquarium that is constantly communicating its energy needs to Wengel and his staff. That means letting them know in real time if a system is using more power than usual and where inefficiencies lie in everything from HVAC systems to life-support pumps.
According to the road map the coalition developed, the aquarium plans to participate in a program that pays big energy users to power down on days when the electric grid is strained by demand from air conditioners. But first that means finding out what in the aquarium can be safely powered down.
To start with, Shedd is installing individual meters on everything from lighting systems to chillers so it can track and analyze how and when energy is being used. From there it can determine which systems could safely be powered down without harming the animals or causing a disruption to patrons, and which could be used or timed differently to save money.
"They cannot compromise experience both on the visitor's side and on the animal side, and they cannot compromise performance because they have a life-support system they have to maintain. So just the fact that they can do this, with those huge barriers, is an incredible example," said Karen Weigert, chief sustainability officer for the city of Chicago, which worked with a coalition that developed the energy plan. Also part of the coalition were the Institute for Sustainable Energy Development and Citizens Utility Board.
The aquarium would simultaneously switch to a pricing scheme that rewards it for using the most energy at the times of day when demand is lowest and electricity prices are cheaper.
Also on the docket: solar panels with batteries for storing excess energy that could be sold back to the electric grid in the same way that power plants sell their power.
The plans are in line with that of Illinois, which in October 2011 approved a 10-year, $2.6 billion upgrade to the electrical grid that serves Shedd and the rest of the Chicago area. Half of that is being spent to create a smart grid that, according to ComEd, will bring 100-year-old electrical grid technology into the digital age, automatically reporting problems, rerouting power and eliminating the need for meter readers.
With a smart grid, Shedd could power up some systems while powering down others, and sell or buy electricity from the grid in real time according to the demands of the electrical grid.
To pay for these changes, Shedd plans to seek government grants and private donations. In time, say coalition members, those investments will reap dividends, financially, educationally and environmentally.
"The Shedd's in a unique position. It's been there for 100 years and it's going to be there for another 100 more; so, when you look at a 15-year return on investment, that's not too bad," Hulsebosch said.
jwernau@tribune.com
