Final Results!

The two week-long Competitive Energy Reduction (CER) Campaign in  CPE is over and we have great news!  The graph below shows that on each day of the campaign, energy consumption in CPE dropped an average of 186 kWh/day (1.6%) due to the conscious efforts of staff and 20 graduate students in Chemical Engineering.

• This amounts to almost $14/day, or more than $5000/year [$0.0743/kWh [1]]
• This is equivalent to 6.4 average US households [2].

Now, multiply the percent of energy saved during these two weeks by 2 (to include what the Petroleum side of CPE could also contribute) and multiply this by the energy consumption of UT Austin campus [86,238,065 kWh/year [1]]  If all buildings could reduce energy consumption by 3.2%, the savings would be:

1.6% x 2  x 86,238,065 kWh/year  = 2,759,618 kWh/year [3]

2759618 x $0.0743/kWh = $205,040/year [3]

It is my hope that with this project and future efforts, we can enact policy at the university level to make further changes. For more details about these changes and about the results of this study please attend our future presentation.  We are tentatively planning on mid-June for both the presentation and report (details will be emailed and posted later on this site).

I want to thank all of you for your interest in energy conservation, and I especially want to thank Randy Rife, Jim Smitherman, Butch, Karen Eikner, and Kay Costales-Swift of CPE and Richard Mitchell and Anthony of the Power Plant. I also want to thank the team who worked on this project, including Scientists and Engineers of America (SEA) Co-founder Jamie Vernon, Stephanie Taylor, Pam Willis, and Eman Ghanem, whom all came up with great ideas and did an outstanding job.  They made my job as project leader much easier!

Keep it up, your collective work will continue to save valuable resources, both on campus and at home…

Sincerely, Rebecca Knight

[1] based on estimated energy consumption by UT Austin 2008/2009: http://www.utexas.edu/utilities/about/energydata.html

[2] based on figures for 2001 average household energy consumption: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/recs/recs2001/enduse2001/enduse2001.html

[3] With campus expanding and energy prices rising, this value will increase.  Also, considering that only 20 graduate students (out of ~150) and some staff (albeit very critical members) participated, the percentage of energy savings would likely be greater under a campus wide energy saving campaign.  These values, we feel, are quite conservative.

Energy Campaign is Wrapping Up-Time for Coffee!

The good news is that during these two weeks, energy consumption dropped to below average levels for every day of the week (data collection began March 25th).

Thursday of Week 4 had an increase compared to previous days but was still slightly below the average.  This might be due to warmer temperatures.

Further analysis and inclusion of parameters (ie. weather patterns, new equipment installations, and special events) will be included in future blog posts and the final report.  In addition, we will look at more detailed sections of data, such as night usage vs day usage, to determine when savings were most significant.

We couldn’t have done this without the CPE volunteers, and so to reward all volunteers, we are having a coffee hour on Monday (April 27) at 2pm.  Please bring checklists, lab energy audit forms and any ideas and comments about this experience.  The first 10 people to show up will receive a free cappuccino thanks to Cafe Medici, and we will also have delicious baklava, made by Eman, a CER team member.

Please join us!!
Who: Anyone in CPE who has been aware of this project, in particular those who signed up to be on the Green Team
When: Monday, 4/27/09, 2pm
Where: Cafe Medici (2222 Guadalupe Street, near CVS pharmacy)
Why: This experiment will help shape policy on campus for better energy audit systems, better electricity control, and more conscious collective stewardship.  But we need feedback to complete the report.  AND because it will be an enjoyable afternoon break with free cappuccinos and baklava.

Congratulations to the CPE building volunteers, you did an excellent job!

The Press and Journal is covering the CER project

Keep your eyes open!

A Scottish newspaper called the Press and Journal has picked up the story of the CER project. A write-up will appear May 4 in the OTC edition of Energy.

Let us know if you see it.

The CER Summary Report is Coming Soon!!!

We are collecting the final data points today and tomorrow to complete the two week-long CER project in CPE.  We hope to have some analysis of the data by Monday, April 27th.

Please keep up the good work!  We believe we have had a positive impact on the culture of energy consumption in CPE.  We would like to continue to use the CPE building as a model of energy conservation efforts for the UT Campus.

Energy Conservation in CPE is Working

Last week daily electric usage dropped in CPE.  See for yourself!

Data collection began on Wednesday, March 25th.  The red bar is the average of the weeks prior to starting the Competitive Energy Reduction (CER) Campaign in CPE, the blue bar is last week’s data.  Five of the seven days showed less energy usage than any of the previous three weeks.  Monday and Sunday showed less energy than the average usage but within the range of the previous three weeks.

Daily data for each week and average daily usage per week can be seen in the following chart.

The data indicates that you ARE making a difference.  Keep it up, we want to show the University that CPE is a prime model of what collective energy stewardship and conservation can accomplish.  Congratulations Green-Team!

The CER project is evident in the CPE building.

Our Lab Superhero campaign poster is prominently displayed on the large LCD monitor in front of the elevators as you enter the building!

During midday, the lights in the computer lab are turned off when no one is working in the lab.  This was very exciting to see.  Now, if we can just get those monitors to go to sleep…

Additional posters are located throughout the building, some staff members have even posted them outside their office doors.

And, we have contacted graduate students by dropping leaflets in their mailboxes.  We try to be discrete and not too imposing.

Meet the CPE Team

The team of students working on the CER project in the CPE building includes Team leader Rebecca Knight, Stephanie Taylor, Pam Willis, Eman Ghanem and (not pictured) Matt Nicollette.  Also, not pictured is Project Leader Jamie Vernon.

Here’s Rebecca collecting data from the power plant with Rick Mitchell.

All Publicity is Good Publicity!

On Tuesday, April 14th, the Competitive Energy Project was featured in The Daily Texan.  Congratulations to the CER teams and all the CPE Green Team Volunteers-you’re making news!

Keep talking to your lab-mates, your office-mates and fellow researchers-let’s continue the publicity.  We need your help to enact energy saving, and time-sensitive policies for the University of Texas.

Is Energy Dropping in CPE?

Monday and Tuesday of this week showed higher energy consumption in CPE than in the previous two weeks.  Wednesday, however, showed a decrease in energy consumption…  Could this be a direct correlation to the increase in number of participants?  Are increased energy saving behaviors making an impact?  How will this trend continue for Thursday and Friday?  Another trip to the power plant is scheduled for Monday morning.  We shall soon see…

Update (4/20/2009): You may notice the data indicated here is less in value than the data in the 4/20/2009 post (above).  This is because for this chart the data was collected as the maximum value in trend queries done at the power plant.  The actual total usage was collected by using a different query, shown to us today by Rick.  The discrepancy was because while the data “dumps” down to zero around 11:56pm, the meter is still running, and thus this data is not collected in the max value. All future queries will use the new method learned today.  -RK

Energy Data Coming Soon!!!