The Foreign Service Journal, October 2021

48 OCTOBER 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Reducing Waste We further applied new technology and engineering to two of our chief-of-mission (COM) residences. After a major chiller failure at our U.S. Mission to the United Nations COM residence, we installed new natural gas–fired chillers that have an engine that spins the compressor to produce chilled water. One of the main advantages of this technology is that waste heat from the chiller’s operations can be recovered and used to produce domestic hot water. This greatly reduces the energy needed to perform this task separately, and it has lowered our utility bills for the property. At our historic Embassy Rome COM residence, we installed solar panels to heat the water for the swimming pool and to provide hot water to the locker room. Use of the solar panels has led to savings of approxi- mately 60 percent on natural gas bills for the residence. We also utilized solar technology at one of our government-owned apartment buildings, where we replaced outdated boilers with two small condensing boilers that integrate the heating energy produced by newly installed solar panels. In sunny Rome, the solar panels significantly reduce CO 2 in the production of hot water. In addition, we redesigned the system to separate domestic hot water from the heating system, which eliminates the need for the heating boilers to run year-round and increases the system’s overall efficiency. We also replaced the primary and secondary pumps with more efficient inverter pumps. The entire boiler room is controlled by an automated management system that adjusts the heating-system supply temperature according to the outside temperature to save natural gas and avoid occupant discomfort during hotter days. Since the Tri‐Mission official campus is located inside Rome’s historic district, it is difficult to install onsite renewable energy technology such as solar panels. We thus decided to buy renewable energy from an offsite provider through renewable energy certificates. This service, which we document through guarantee-of-origin certificates from the provider, contributes to annual carbon offsetting of about 3,000,000 kg (3,000 tons) of CO 2 —approximately equivalent to the amount of energy consumed annually by 360 homes in the United States. Tri-Mission Italy’s management section continually seeks to make processes and facilities “greener.” This year the department recognized our achievements with the Green- ing Diplomacy Initiative Award for Excellence in Team Sustainability Performance. We hope that our efforts can serve as an example to others of pragmatic actions in the here and now to tackle the climate crisis. n Residential solar panels in Rome result in significant savings on natural gas. The Tri-Mission Italy was one of the first large- scale organizations in Rome to implement a waste-recycling program in collaboration with City Hall Waste Management. U.S.DEPARTMENTOFSTATE/TRI-MISSION ITALY U.S.DEPARTMENTOFSTATE/TRI-MISSION ITALY