Penn State Fayette campus instructor David Meredith was recently selected as one of approximately 30 professionals to attend a five-day Department of Energy conference in Lexington, K.Y. The conference, hosted by the University of Kentucky, was co-sponsored by the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges (NASULGC).
According to Meredith, the objective was to write course curricula to teach the design, construction and operation of sustainable, high performance housing in the United States.
"Providing comfort in today's average home costs about four to five times as much as it needs to using conventional energy saving methods. The annual cost in Fayette county to heat a three-bedroom home should not exceed $300 with fuel oil (about $200 with natural gas). Our national goal is to develop homes that use zero energy and still provide the comfort level Americans have come to expect. It will require some changes in attitude and expectations, but the timing is critically important."
Meredith explained the local link to this issue is that Penn State Fayette had the first ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology)-accredited solar technology program in the nation back in 1982 and the campus continues to teach energy conservation and sustainable design in the Building Engineering Technology program today. One recent example is the rain barrels that the Architectural Engineering Technology 103 class built and distributed last year.