A new energy conservation officer has been named to help reduce utility consumption at the University of Colorado at Boulder in a strategic move by Vice Chancellor Paul Tabolt to reduce energy demand and associated costs throughout campus.
Moe Tabrizi, an industrial engineer and former senior manager in the high-tech industry, is charged with developing, evaluating and implementing utility conservation measures to reverse a trend of increased campus energy use in recent years. Tabrizi will report to Jeff Lipton, executive director of Facilities Management.
CU-Boulder's energy consumption has risen by 5 percent annually over the past several years, Lipton said, highlighting the need for a coordinated campus approach to save energy and lower utility costs.
"We created this position in order to have one person whose sole focus is to analyze how and where our greatest energy use is concentrated and where in our system we can make changes in order to achieve the maximum energy savings possible," Lipton said.
Doing that requires a person with high-level technical, analytical and financial skills and dedicated time to devote to finding and correcting energy inefficiencies, he said. In the past, energy conservation has been handled on an ad hoc basis, with little coordinated effort in place to identify the most cost-effective areas for improvement.
Besides identifying areas for conservation, Tabrizi will be responsible for working with campus departments to develop their own conservation plans.
"Spreading the word about the importance of energy conservation on campus will be an important part of this job," Lipton said. "Money saved from utility costs can be reinvested into the academic enterprise."
As energy conservation officer, Tabrizi will manage a comprehensive energy conservation program on campus, prepare reports recommending conservation improvements, develop and implement a conservation awareness program to motivate campus departments to conserve energy, prepare grant requests for campus conservation projects and analyze energy consumption data to identify conservation targets, particularly those that could produce significant utility cost savings.
Tabrizi will work closely with the CU Environmental Center, Housing and the UCSU-owned building managers. He also will help support the efforts of the already existing Campus Resource Conservation Committee.
Prior to this position, Tabrizi worked as a senior manager for new product development at the telecommunications firm Avaya in Westminster, as a senior manager for engineering and operations at Lucent Technologies in Westminster and as an engineering manager for AT&T in Westminster.Ìý
At Avaya, Tabrizi was responsible for planning the next generation products and moving the technology through production and manufacturing. He directed product technology transfer to international factories, led a successful product cost-reduction program and was involved in Avaya's energy conservation efforts.
Tabrizi holds a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from the University of Oklahoma and a master's degree in industrial engineering, also from the University of Oklahoma.