TSCP moves to a New Office!

Today was moving day for TSCP! Originally located on the 2nd floor Administration Bureau Bldg.2 of the Hongo campus, TSCP's new office is on the 5th floor of Administration Bureau building. It was a relatively easy move as the two buildings are next to each other.

As for me, I packed some boxes but was also given my first task- to write a 200-300 word abstract for a study on reducing the environmental impact of university facilities, specifically on the effectiveness of the measures implemented in the University hospital, pharmacy, and medical buildings. TSCP is submitting its extensive report for the 10th IEA Heat Pump Conference 2011 which will be held in Tokyo, Japan from May 16-19th, 2010.

I'm currently still trying to decipher the paper but here's what I have so far:
1. The University has 5 main campuses and owns around 500 buildings. After classifying each building into one of four categories (1. arts 2. office 3. science 4. hospital/pharmacy/medical), it was found that arts and office buildings have the lowest primary energy consumption per unit per year and lowest CO2 emissions per unit per year, while science buildings are double that and hospital/medical buildings are triple.

2. Targeting the worst energy offender, the medical buildings, the paper further divides the area into 1. research/management facilities and 2. hospital facilities. The paper notes the effects of renewing and using different heat pumps (air-cooled chiller, steam absorption chiller, non-heated chiller) and how the introduction of a new heat recovery centrifugal chiller was able to reduce primary annual energy consumption and thus CO2 emissions. It goes on to explain the effects of seasons, recording the changing monthly COP (coefficient of performance which is the ratio of useful heat movement to work input) of the pumps.

Lastly, my co-workers treated me out a delicious and enormous plate of zaru soba! Zaru soba is cold buckwheat noodles that you dip in a delicious broth which you can even turn into tea if you're done with all your noodles.