Campus Energy Conservation - Who Cares?

happydayz182

Hey guys !

One of our final year projects involves examining students attitudes to energy consumption and behavior patterns in and around the campus!

Is your energy consumption (lights,printers,computers etc) something that any of ye have paid any thought too? Have any of ye came across instances where there is a clear disregard for energy consumption ? And does anyone actually care?

Any thoughts or opinions feel free to share!

J_E

Empty/locked rooms with computers powered on really irk me. Seems like a huge waste of energy.

Chimaera

It's something I'm personally always aware of but I don't think the university prioritises it enough in its day-to-day operations.

As an example, the individual departments in the university are not billed for their use of utilities such as water or electricity even though the university as a whole is paying for these. Therefore the departments will tend to choose equipment based on capital cost even though it is more expensive to run in terms of utility usage because the capital part is what they're funding from their own budgets.

Jester252

Well energy conservation on campus has made great progress in the last few years. UL employment of an energy manger has helped to add motion sensors on lights in less used corridors that use to have been left on all the time. The building have also received a BER rating which will help with future progress of energy conservation. Smart travel are also doing working in reducing the number of people driving into UL.
Regarding the lock rooms that the best example of lectures/student attitude. Their no paying for it so they don't care.

iLaura

The amount of people who just go to the library and take up desks to charge their laptops is ridiculous!

I was in there not too long ago when a guy sat down beside me. He took out his laptop, plugged it in to charge and then proceeded to play Pokemon online. Awhile later his friend came over to him and asked was he almost ready to go, when he replied that it'd take his laptop about 10 more minutes to charge, and then he'd be good to go.

I know it can take a lot of electricity to charge a laptop, but really? When it comes nearer to study week this fool will still probably be taking up a desk leaving others to walk around looking for a place to actually do some work.

happydayz182

Jester252 wrote: »

Well energy conservation on campus has made great progress in the last few years. UL employment of an energy manger has helped to add motion sensors on lights in less used corridors that use to have been left on all the time. The building have also received a BER rating which will help with future progress of energy conservation. Smart travel are also doing working in reducing the number of people driving into UL.
Regarding the lock rooms that the best example of lectures/student attitude. Their no paying for it so they don't care.

Ya the locked rooms full of computers shows a clear disregard! Who would you actually point the finger at in a case like that? Have any of ye noticed any similar clear wastage or general lack of efficiency?

As for the lecture/student attitude about not caring because they are not financially responsible - is there anything that would actually make people give a damn basically? Our research backed up the point of view of no-one caring as well!

What kind of incentives would actually make an impact?

ninty9er

If I remember correctly, 2 buildings used approx 80% of the energy on campus not so long ago. The main building isn't/wasn't one of them and one of them had efficiency measures in place!

Jester252

happydayz182 wrote: »

Ya the locked rooms full of computers shows a clear disregard! Who would you actually point the finger at in a case like that? Have any of ye noticed any similar clear wastage or general lack of efficiency?

As for the lecture/student attitude about not caring because they are not financially responsible - is there anything that would actually make people give a damn basically? Our research backed up the point of view of no-one caring as well!

What kind of incentives would actually make an impact?

well no incentive would actually work in terms of getting lecture and students to turn off because there is no way to keep track of who turned what off/when. The best would make incentives to the department/research institution to have lab tech turn off the computers at 5 but that just a major minefield of problems.
Most computer lab would have pc turned off at night.

ninty9er

Jester252 wrote: »

The best would make incentives to the department/research institution to have lab tech turn off the computers at 5 but that just a major minefield ....

That has actually been considered, well, not exactly, but buying software that would cut power to non-designated desktops at 6pm, however it would create issues with people working late etc.

happydayz182

Just out of interest - how many of ye are aware of the following tools that are being used to monitor the different buildings at the moment? Have any of you guys come across this before?

http://www2.ul.ie/web/WWW/Services/Buildings_and_Estates/Energy_%26_Water/EMT

It has a breakdown of all the different buildings energy consumption etc.