Recipients of this prestigious, early-faculty award exhibit the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education, and lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.

Each UCF awardee is using their expertise to study the core part of a key system — whether it’s Perotti understanding heart mechanics in relation to health and disease, Guo’s research on harnessing solar power through electric vehicles or Chen, who is redefining high-speed connectivity used in communication antennas.

Non-Magnetic Technology for the Future of Communications

Kenle Chen

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Project Title: Non-Reciprocally Coupled Load-Modulation Platform for Next-Generation High-Power Magnetic-Less Fully Directional Radio Front Ends

Award: $500,000

Our current radio spectrum, or the range of frequencies used for wireless communications, is quickly becoming congested due to rapidly increased user volume from humans and smart devices, as well as from new wireless technologies, such as Wi-Fi7, 5G+ and more.

Assistant Professor Kenle Chen, from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is developing a first-of-its-kind technology that could alleviate this congestion and allow for more efficient and reliable communications.

In emerging communication systems, an essential device is a circulator that helps control the flow of signals by routing them between an antenna, transmitter and receiver. It can be found on base stations on Earth and on satellites in space.

Traditional circulators rely on “magnetic material,” in which signals travel in one direction under the influence of a magnetic field.

“I can foresee that this research will be wildly exciting and enable knowledge for the future 6G systems featured as joint communication and radar,” Chen says.

Recently, microchip-based, non-magnetic circulators have become possible, but their performance is far from their magnetic counterparts. For instance, state-of-the-art non-magnetic circulators can only handle watt-level of transmission power, which is far below the usable range of many realistic systems, Chen says.

Chen’s approach unleashes the high-power operation of a non-magnetic circulator in an indirect way that will enable more than 10 watts of signal transmission and allow bidirectional signal flow at the antenna interface. Making the technology completely magnetic-less renders a more affordable solution for wireless industries, Chen says.

“It’s a way to directionally route the transmission signal and receive signal, so it’s a bidirectional process, using a single unified antenna,” Chen says. “It will meanwhile enhance the efficiency of high-power amplifiers, the most energy-consuming unit on all wireless platforms.”

Additionally, current magnetic circulators are quite expensive, large and heavy in size — leading to high manufacturing and installation costs for the system as well as increased maintenance requirements. Chen’s new technology will shrink the weight and size of the emerging radio system.

The significant advantages of Chen’s disruptive technology have created interest from wireless and semiconductor industries. Chen says that when installing a current antenna array high onto a base station, oftentimes a helicopter or heavy lifting equipment is needed.

“If we can get rid of magnetic circulators, then we can very much minimize the size and weight of this antenna array,” he says. “So, workers can just carry it on their back as they install it — saving the overall cost and improving labor efficiency and safety.”

Chen’s NSF project will establish the theoretical foundation and practical design methodologies for the proposed technology. He will demonstrate the effectiveness of his proposal using prototypes that mimic the advanced antenna array system within an anechoic, or echo-free, chamber at UCF.

Chen will be working with his research group and the UCF INSPIRE Lab. His team will also provide outreach programs to K-12 students with videos and lectures about wireless technology.

Chen earned his doctoral degree in electrical engineering from Purdue şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą in 2013 and worked in the industry before joining UCF in 2018. He credits the four years he spent in the wireless semiconductor sector for fueling his excitement toward developing new research.

“I can foresee that this research will be wildly exciting and enable knowledge for the future 6G systems featured as joint communication and radar,” Chen says. “Beyond the technological frontiers, it will address the nation’s core interests in spectrum sustainability and ubiquitous coverage of high-speed connectivity and lead to economic benefits in the future.”

Harnessing the Sun’s Energy Through Electric Vehicles

Zhaomiao (Walter) Guo

Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering

Project Title: A Decentralized Optimization Framework for Next-Gen Transportation and Power Systems with Large-scale Transportation Electrification

Award: $525,781

Using the increasing number of electric vehicles (EVs) on the roads as an advantage, civil, environmental and construction engineering Assistant Professor Walter Guo’s project will couple two important infrastructure systems — transportation and power — to contribute to a more sustainable future.

Guo is currently building a network model that will examine EVs to capture and store solar energy, which can then be transferred into a power system as the EV replenishes its own battery supply — creating a bidirectional flow of power.

Guo, who is also a part of UCF’s Resilient, Intelligent and Sustainable Energy Systems faculty cluster initiative and center, says his ultimate research goal is to introduce more clean energy into the power and transportation systems in a cost-effective way.

While Guo’s model will rely on his computational and engineering expertise, the outcome is largely dependent on the adoption of the system by transportation departments, utility companies and industry partners, including individuals who own EVs.

“EV and solar technologies are going to have a large market penetration in the next 10 or 20 years,” Guo says. “And when we’re able to get these two technologies to work together, it will completely change both systems.” Guo is looking forward to broadly collaborate with the stakeholders, including Florida Department of Transportation, utility companies and the City of Orlando to enable this paradigm shift.

“When the EVs provide support during an outage, they can potentially help recover the power system’s critical loads, allowing the power system startup to be easier,” Guo says.

Guo’s study will also incorporate key concepts in game theory to explore how the average EV owner may adopt the model if given rewards, such as monetary incentives.

“It’s a cyclical process,” he says. “By providing incentives to the EV owners, we essentially reduce the ownership costs for them. So eventually, it will promote the adoption of EVs that in turn, will enable the integration of solar or renewable energy in power systems.”

To quantify the value of providing a certain amount of energy back into the power system, Guo will consider various factors like time, vehicle use and cases where the demand for power is high, such as during a power outage due to a natural disaster.

“When the EVs provide support during an outage, they can potentially help recover the power system’s critical loads, allowing the power system startup to be easier,” Guo says.

Since the time he was working as a transportation engineer in 2012 to his postdoctoral assignment in 2018 where he investigated the power transmission and distribution networks for EVs, Guo’s career path has led him straight to this project.

Over the past five years, Guo’s team of collaborators, which includes students, have played a major role in developing the preliminary results needed to receive the NSF CAREER grant.

“The idea of our contribution is to seamlessly integrate the transportation system with the energy system,” he says. “I hope to carry forward this research direction to a broader context that fundamentally improves sustainability and resilience.”

Modeling Heart Mechanics at the Microscale

Luigi Perotti

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Title: How Does the Heart Contract? A Microstructure-Based Approach to Understand Cardiac Function and Dysfunction

Award: $520,769

Mechanical and aerospace engineering Assistant Professor Luigi Perotti’s project will develop a computational model capable of relating observable macroscopic motion in the heart, such as a cardiac contraction, to its causes at the cellular and tissue levels.

By linking cellular and tissue level mechanics to heart function in health and disease, Perotti’s work can inform investigations of how localized and more widespread abnormalities contribute to cardiac dysfunction across scales.

“If we can link the micro and macroscales more accurately, then we can improve diagnosis and treatment because we can have a more precise, causal link between the changes that happened in the heart,” Perotti says.

“If we can link the micro and macroscales more accurately, then we can improve diagnosis and treatment…” Perotti says.

To build, test and improve their models, Perotti and his team in the Computational Biomechanics Lab, will use existing literature and acquired magnetic resonance imaging data, like those from Cardiac Diffusion Tensor Imaging and Displacement Encoding with Stimulated Echoes Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or DENSE MRI.

The multiscale computational models will be compared with this experimental data to connect deformation at the cellular and microstructural levels to motion measurable at the tissue and ventricle scales.

“We hope that our results based on microstructural models and imaging data can suggest new quantitative biomarkers to quantify cardiac motion,” Perotti says.

The project will also include outreach to students from local schools to inspire their interest in science, engineering and healthcare.

“Students will be able to hold basic heart models in their hands to understand how the myofiber organizes in a helical structure across the wall and understand how this helical structure is important for cardiac contraction,” Perotti says.

For Perotti, his heart has always been intrigued by coding and biology. His research as a postdoctoral scholar at the şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą of California, Los Angeles, initially focused on analyzing the maturation of spherical viral shells and how to model their change in shape. However, after his mentor invited him to join a cardiac electrophysiology project, Perotti’s interest in the complex studies of the heart with medical experts intensified.

Since joining UCF in 2019, he continues projects with faculty and students, and says he enjoys the collaborative opportunities the university offers.

“From the time I interviewed for this position, I always had the impression that UCF is very energetic and there is a strong push to grow together,” he says.

Through this project, Resilience, Education and Advocacy Center for Hazard preparedness (REACH) hubs will be developed thanks to a recently announced $50,000 grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Civic Innovation Challenge program. They could be deployed any time a disaster — whether natural or human-made — strikes.

Leading the project is a team of UCF faculty, including Assistant Professor Kelly Stevens and Associate Professor Yue “Gurt” Ge, Assistant Professor L. Trenton Marsh, and College of Engineering and Computer Science professor Liqiang Wang and Pegasus Professor Zhihua Qu.

The REACH hubs will be able to serve two primary roles. Following disasters or local emergencies, the hubs will provide critical services such as cooling, broadband internet and reliable electricity to areas whose access to those needs may already be unstable. The hubs also will serve as hazard-preparedness and hands-on STEM education centers.

“Different types of hubs are being developed and used across the U.S., but ours is unique in that it has an equally important use during non-emergency times,” Stevens says. “Making a solar-powered, portable hub is technically challenging, but the benefits it can provide to communities whose access to standard services may already be restricted without an external shock make it well worth it.”

Stevens says that the grant also paves the way for partnership opportunities.

“The NSF CIVIC program is unique because it focuses on civic partnerships that can be quickly implemented and ultimately sustained long-term by participating local partners,” she says. “We will host a local stakeholder meeting next month with our partners and two public input meetings in December to really get feedback from the whole community.”

She says the community meetings will help determine factors ranging from what services the hubs will provide and where they will be deployed after a disaster to which educational topics should be covered during non-emergency events.

Beyond the external partnerships, Stevens says this project opens the door for new cooperation with other UCF colleagues across different disciplines.

“The research we are doing builds on interdisciplinary coordination from public administration, computer science and engineering across UCF,” she says.

The research team will have six months to prepare a plan for the REACH hub and submit it to the NSF, after which they are eligible for up to $1 million in awarded funds to execute the project.

About the Research Team

Stevens received her doctorate in public administration from Syracuse şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą and joined UCF’s School of Public Administration, part of UCF’s College of Community Innovation and Education, in 2017.  She is a member of UCF’s Resilient, Intelligent, and Sustainable Energy Systems (RISES) Cluster and

After joining UCF in 2018, Ge has since been appointed co-lead of the Urban Resilience Initiative based at UCF Downtown. He has also served on the RISES faculty research cluster since 2021. He holds a doctorate in urban and regional science from Texas A&M şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą.

Marsh earned his doctorate in urban education from New York şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą and joined UCF’s College of Community Innovation and Education in 2019.

Qu arrived at UCF in 1990 after earning a doctorate in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Currently the Thomas J. Riordan and Herbert C. Towle Chair of UCF’s , he is also the founding director of both the RISES, a university research center on energy systems, and the multi-institutional (FEEDER).

Wang earned his doctorate in computer science from Stony Brook şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą in 2006 and joined the UCF in 2015.

In the forum, Hydrogen: The Time is Now, UCF President Alexander N. Cartwright and Mitsubishi Power Americas President and CEO Bill Newsom will discuss collaborative opportunities to achieve net zero by 2050. Keynote speaker Jennifer Wilcox, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Fuels and Carbon Management principal deputy assistant secretary, will address the government’s role and recent legislative progress. Panels of experts will discuss the challenges and opportunities in creating a national hydrogen economy.

The forum comes at a critical time, as nations worldwide seek clean-energy solutions. Scientists and engineers are turning to the most abundant element, hydrogen, as a clean energy source that could produce enough energy to serve growing populations while reducing greenhouse gas emissions to “net zero” by 2050.

The power generation industry’s transition to hydrogen, which involves large-scale production, storage and distribution,  is a complex challenge. Creating a hydrogen-based energy economy, according to Cartwright and Newsom, will require high-level collaborations and investments among academia, industry and government.

“UCF offers partnership opportunities through our multiple research centers that leverage faculty expertise in a variety of relevant areas — such as power generation and storage, combustion, modeling and simulation, energy grid technology, sustainability, aerospace and environmental engineering, and more,” Cartwright says. “UCF — among the nation’s largest producers of engineers and computer scientists — in partnership with Mitsubishi Power and others can play a key role in educating and training the talent pipeline required for a hydrogen-based energy economy.”

Mitsubishi Power, a global leader in power generation, has made major investments in recent years to create the infrastructure required to produce and store hydrogen, and transition existing power plants to clean hydrogen.

“We have set an ambitious goal to reach net zero across all MHI Group companies by 2040,” Newsom says. “In order to help meet this goal we are elevating our partnership with the şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą — a proven research powerhouse in the energy sector. Through this partnership, we will focus on innovation, research, and education to advance the energy transition.”

• UCF and Mitsubishi Power are longtime partners. Approximately a third of the company’s engineering/manufacturing workforce are UCF graduates.
• In the past 16 years, the company has provided internships for hundreds of UCF students.
• In 2012, UCF installed a Mitsubishi Power power plant on campus that in four years reduced UCF’s carbon footprint by 2,000 to 3,500 metric tons of CO₂ per year in carbon emissions.
• In 2021, UCF and Mitsubishi Power developed and launched a nitrogen oxide emissions tracker
• Since 2021, Mitsubishi has been funding Professor Subith Vasu in UCF’s Center for Advanced Turbomachinery and Energy Systems to research and experimentally quantify hydrogen ignition safety boundaries for gas turbines. This effort is also supported by additional funding from the Florida High Tech Corridor Council.
• Mitsubishi is a collaborator on an $800,000 award to UCF from the U.S. Department of Energy, also led by Vasu. The effort focuses on better understanding how to implement hydrogen in modern electricity-generating turbines, including exploring the best fuel blends and their combustion characteristics

UCF’s Research and Academic Centers that Can Support a National Transition to Hydrogen-Based Clean Energy

CATER: Center for Advanced Turbomachinery and Energy Research — led by Pegasus Professor Jayanta Kapat, UCF Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

FSEC: Florida Solar Energy Center — led by Professor James Fenton, UCF Department of Materials Science and Engineering

RISES: Resilient, Intelligent and Sustainable Energy Systems — led by Pegasus Professor Zhihua Qu, UCF Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

REACT: Renewable Energy and Chemical Transformations — led by Pegasus Professor Talat Rahman, UCF Department of Physics

UCF School of Modeling, Simulation and Training — led by Director Grace Bochenek ’98PhD., former director of National Energy Technology Laboratory and former acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy

The regulations state that anyone selling power in Florida, regardless of size, must follow the same rules as large utility companies. This has resulted in keeping smaller energy developers from entering into what is known as a power purchase agreement with individuals, businesses and nonprofits. These rules include building codes, permitting, reliability reporting, electric-rate scheduling and tariff regulations under the Florida Public Service Commission. Currently, 28 states allow solar power purchase agreements to operate, while Florida is one of seven states with legal barriers in place effectively prohibiting their use.

With a power purchase agreement, a person or organization allows an energy developer to install, own, operate and maintain an energy production system, such as a solar array, on their property. The electricity generated from the solar array is sold back to the person or organization at a price that is often lower than what they are paying their utility provider.

“The electricity generated from the solar array is sold to the customer using a long-term contract at a price that is typically below retail electric rates,” says Kelly Stevens, an assistant professor in UCF’s and report co-author. “This way, the customer receives the electricity generated from the solar array yet avoids the high up-front capital costs and difficulty of arranging financing, design, permitting and construction of the array.”

Stevens says things to consider before entering into a solar power purchase agreement are the electricity rate negotiated with the developer and the space available for a solar array.

“The third-party, power purchase-agreement rate that is typically lower than retail electricity prices could escalate over time, which would be identified in the long-term contract, so it would be anticipated,” Stevens says. “But that price escalation or baseline price may not be significantly lower than the retail electricity price, which reduces some of the economic benefit to the customer.”

“Also, not all customers can support the same amount of solar on their property due to space and environmental constraints,” she says. “So, the benefit will depend on specific characteristics of each site.”

In the study, the researchers examined the potential economic and environmental impacts of solar power purchase agreements in Florida if they were enabled in the state.

The researchers determined that if Florida increased its non-utility solar generation by 42 percent through power purchase agreements, bringing its share closer to the national average of 65 percent, that this would add an additional 1,165 to 1,942 megawatts of additional solar capacity to the grid.

This would result in an annual reduction of 1.8 to 3.1 million tons of greenhouse gases emitted, which is the equivalent of removing more than 118,000 gasoline-powered cars from the road each year.

Construction of Florida-based solar arrays through power purchase agreements would result in an economic impact of $2.3 billion to $3.8 billion, and the creation of 15,000 to 25,000 jobs, according to the report.

To illustrate the implementation of solar power purchase agreements in Florida, the report also provided three case studies of potential savings if the agreements were implemented in three Central Florida locations – the City of Orlando, the Osceola School District, and the First Unitarian Church of Orlando.

For instance, the City of Orlando currently has 19 city facilities participating in a community solar program. If the city were to install 18 megawatts of solar through a power purchase agreement on 14 additional city-owned buildings, it would save more than $400,000 in electricity costs annually and reduce carbon emissions equivalent to removing more than 1,200 gasoline-powered cars off the road each year.

For the Osceola School District, there are currently solar panels installed on seven schools. If solar was installed on an additional three schools through a power purchase agreement, the district could see annual electricity savings of more than $90,000, and it would result in the equivalent of more than 150 cars taken off the road annually.

Study co-authors were Gilbert Michaud, an assistant professor of practice at Ohio şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą, and David Jenkins, a research associate at Ohio şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą.

The research was funded by a $10,000 grant from Solar United Neighbors, a national nonprofit organization that promotes solar energy production.

Stevens received her doctorate in public administration from Syracuse şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą and joined UCF’s School of Public Administration, part of UCF’s , in 2017. She’s a member of UCF’s Resilient, Intelligent and Sustainable Energy Systems Cluster.

“I’ve always been interested in science,” Norvell said. “Even as a kid I was doing things out of the box, building things and trying to understand how things work and how to make things better and more efficient.”

That intellectual curiosity and an eye for conservation will serve Norvell well as the şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ąâ€™s new – and first – assistant vice president for sustainability initiatives. The newly created position elevates UCF’s vow to have a greener campus.

“It shows UCF has reaffirmed the commitment for the sustainability initiatives we’ve been pursuing,” said Norvell, a 1993 alumnus who graduated with a mechanical engineering degree. “Our vision is to provide students with a campus environment that not only supports sustainability but becomes a leader in the industry.”

Norvell’s new job puts an increased focus on UCF’s sustainability goals. He has no shortage of work. In 2007, UCF President John C. Hitt signed the American College & şŁ˝ÇÖ±˛Ą Presidents’ Climate Commitment, making UCF one of the first to pledge to be climate neutral by 2050.

To achieve that goal, the university must have no net greenhouse gas emissions. There are interim goals, including a big one already underway: ensuring that by 2020, 15 percent of the energy used by UCF comes from renewable sources rather than fossil fuels.

There are already some solar panels spread around campus, the largest of which – a 107-kilowatt installation – sits next to Garage B. But it will take a lot more to help meet the 2020 goal. The university has set aside about 40 acres east of the Robinson Observatory for construction of a solar farm.

It is Norvell’s job to keep that project and others on track.

He’s not new to UCF. Norvell came to the university in 2001 as energy manager, and in the past decade has served as director of sustainability and energy management, saving the university more than $14 million through energy-efficiency projects. For the past two years, Norvell has been assistant vice president of facilities.

Among the university’s other projects that Norvell has had a hand in is the construction of a natural gas-fueled power plant on the main campus. It’s been providing about a third of the campus’ electricity since its launch in late 2012, reducing UCF’s dependency on outside utilities that may use less-clean fuel. UCF is considering building a similar plant to serve its planned downtown campus.

In addition, UCF is constructing and planning several buildings with sustainable designs that are expected to earn LEED designation from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Norvell hopes to make the campus’ sustainability projects academically accessible to students who will be able to learn firsthand how they work – and offer input.

“There are so many passionate students out there,” Norvell said. “I want to get them very much involved in the workings of the university at all levels. I want to get their ideas. We want the campus to be a living laboratory for students.”

That’s the idea behind “Rosen Knights Turn Off the Lights,” an initiative of UCF’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management created by second-year Entrepreneurship student Zac Lee.

Lee’s concept—light switch-plate decals with a written reminder to conserve electricity—earned him the Green Initiative Scholarship, a $1,000 award for the best student idea to save money and make the Rosen campus more environmentally-friendly.

Lee’s idea became a reality this month, when nearly 400 stickers were added to light-switch covers across the Rosen campus, including locations in classrooms, offices, restrooms and the fitness center.

“It’s an awesome feeling to see something that started in my apartment being implemented over an entire campus,” Lee said.

Lee said his idea for the scholarship stemmed from a system he’d already begun at his off-campus apartment. In order to save on utility costs, Lee taped little signs over electronics and light switches in his apartment to remind himself and his roommates to turn off items not in use.

“For the first time, we didn’t go over our utility cap, so when I saw the competition, I decided to enter my idea about putting reminders on all of the light switches,” said Lee.

The Green Initiative Scholarship was a collaboration of Rosen College Dean Abraham Pizam and the Student Government Association Scholarship Committee.

To earn the scholarship, UCF students were challenged last year to come up with an idea to “green” the Rosen campus. The proposal had to include actionable steps to implement the plan, a budget breakout and an estimated saving of resources and finances.

In addition to the scholarship, the Rosen College last year participated in a campus-wide competition to reduce its consumption of water, electricity and natural gas.

Students, faculty and staff were encouraged to make an online pledge to adjust their behaviors through small steps such as taking the stairs and unplugging electronics not in use.

The overall results of the challenge exceeded goals and led to more than $30,000 in savings. The college recorded 10 percent savings in electricity, 25 percent savings in water and 20 percent savings in gas for the spring 2011 semester.

“Green” efforts continue this spring at UCF’s main campus and the Rosen College.

The Department of Sustainability & Energy Management and UCF Housing are sponsoring the Kill-A-Watt competition, an energy-saving contest among residence halls that includes the Rosen College Apartments.

The competition provides students with guidance on how to use energy more efficiently and awards scholarships to students who take big steps in reducing their personal energy consumptions.

Resident assistants also can compete to be UCF’s “Greenest RA.” The title and a semester’s worth of free campus dining are awarded annually to one student who does an outstanding job promoting sustainability to his or her residents.

Visit to learn more about UCF’s energy-saving initiatives. For more on the Rosen College, go to .

The Kill-A-Watt competition is an energy conservation contest for students who live in UCF’s residence halls. The competition provides students with guidance on how to use energy more efficiently and awards scholarships to students who take big steps in reducing their personal energy consumptions.

Kill-A-Watt, now in its sixth year, is led by the Department of Sustainability & Energy Management and UCF Housing and Residence Life. Though the competition’s name, rules and incentives have been revised over the years, the exponential growth in energy savings has been consistent.

In fact, the competition has led to an estimated $146,765 in energy savings since 2007.

Beginning this week, students who live on campus are invited to work together to reduce the energy consumption of their residence halls.

Buildings have been separated into five different groups according to size. For example, Group 5 is comprised of all four buildings within the Towers at Knights Plaza, UCF’s largest housing community.

Residents of buildings within a particular group will compete against each other to achieve the greatest energy reduction and make their building the best performing in its group.

At the end of the competition, students living in the best performing building will become eligible for the $750 grand prize scholarship. Eligible students will be asked to write an essay or record a video that explains the steps he or she took to save energy.

Additional scholarships in denominations of $350 and $100 will be awarded to 10 students from other buildings that achieve at least a 20 percent reduction in energy.

To learn more about the Kill-A-Watt competition and UCF’s sustainability efforts, go to .

The electricity bill for Parking Garage C was cut by more than half in the EPA’s ENERGY STAR National Building Competition, which challenged 245 commercial buildings to save energy, reduce costs and protect Americans’ health and the environment. The results were announced today.

Parking Garage C is the only stand-alone parking structure to take part in the two-year-old competition. The garage is located on the east side of UCF’s main campus, near the engineering buildings.

“These types of initiatives allow us to further demonstrate UCF’s commitment to sustainability,” said David Norvell, UCF’s director of Sustainability & Energy Management. “A parking garage winning the competition also shows that there are ways of using energy more efficiently in all types of facilities.”

The EPA competition included 26 types of commercial buildings from 33 states and the District of Columbia. Participants included schools, hotels and museums.

The competition compared buildings’ energy use between two yearlong periods by measuring their energy use intensity (EUI), which represents the energy consumed by a building relative to its size. Parking Garage C won for demonstrating the greatest percentage reduction in EUI from Sept. 1, 2010, through Aug. 31, 2011.

At UCF, the Department of Sustainability & Energy Management worked with Parking and Transportation Services to make Garage C as efficient as possible by performing retrofits of older equipment.

All of the garage’s interior lights were replaced with T5 fluorescent bulbs that use less energy and improve light quality. New low-maintenance, energy-efficient LED lighting fixtures are anticipated to require little to no service for about 14 years.

“On our campus, all six parking structures now maintain the same lighting, resulting in a friendlier environment, reduction in pollution and longer-lasting bulbs,” said Kris Singh, director of UCF Parking and Transportation Services.

According to the EPA, energy use in commercial buildings accounts for nearly 20 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions at a cost of more than $100 billion per year. An average of 30 percent of energy used by commercial properties is wasted, the agency says.

From improvements in operations and maintenance to upgrades in equipment and technology, this year’s “Battle of the Buildings” competitors together saved more than $5.2 million on annual utility bills. They also prevented greenhouse gas emissions equal to the electricity used by more than 3,600 homes per year.

To learn more about “Battle of the Buildings,” go to .

UCF’s Kill-a-Watt Annual Energy Conservation Competition challenged students to reduce energy consumption in their residence halls for three months. Students learned helpful tips for reducing energy while competing for scholarships and other prizes.

This year’s competition resulted in savings of $48,825 — and enough energy to power 482 homes for a month. More than $146,000 in energy costs has been saved over the past five years of the competition.

The winning building this year was Nike 102, located in Academic Village. The residence hall had an energy savings of nearly 30 percent. Five residents of the winning building are eligible to win $750 scholarships.

The competition was sponsored by the Department of Sustainability & Energy Management and Housing and Residence Life.

This semester’s other sustainability initiatives included RecycleMania, a competition for college and university recycling programs to promote waste reduction activities on their campuses.

Over a 10-week period, UCF and 286 other schools reported trash and recycling data.

UCF collected 128, 596 pounds of recycled goods during the competition.

RecycleMania was led by UCF Dining Services, with support from UCF Recycles, the Student Government Association and Housing and Residence Life.

To learn more about Kill-a-Watt, click . For more information about RecycleMania, click here.