About the CER Project

The Austin Chapter of Scientists and Engineers for America
Competitive Energy Reduction (CER) Project

Project Leader: Jamie Vernon

CPE Team Leader: Rebecca Knight

Team Members: Eman Ghanem, Stephanie Taylor, Pam Willis, Matt Nicolette

Purpose:
•    To bring awareness to the culture of wasteful energy usage on campus.
•    To provide a reliable method of reducing wasteful energy habits.
•    To showcase the impact of behavioral changes on energy conservation on campus.
•    To promote the goals and aspirations of the UT Chapter of Scientists and Engineers for America.

Method:
One of many goals of the UT Chapter of SEA is to contribute to a future where wise science and technology policy will help every American live in a safe and clean environment.  In partnership with Facilities Services at The University of Texas at Austin, the UT SEA chapter will identify two buildings on campus with comparable energy consumption profiles.  The energy consumption profile must be such that changing behaviors of the occupants of the buildings will have an impact on overall energy consumption.
Chapter members will be divided into two teams.  Each team will be assigned to a building.  The teams will compete to minimize energy usage in their assigned building.  The teams will seek to minimize energy consumption by influencing occupants’ awareness of energy consuming behaviors.  The teams will encourage occupants to turn off unused equipment and reduce wasteful energy habits by sponsoring meetings, performing surveys, sending emails, etc.  The methods of reducing energy will be the domain of each of the teams and will not be shared between the teams.
In addition to altering occupants’ behavior, each team will be encouraged to inspect their assigned building to identify sources of energy waste, i.e. broken windows, deteriorated weather-stripping, malfunctioning vending machine misers, etc.  These sources of waste will be reported to Facilities Services.  Subsequent upgrades will be performed at the discretion of Facilities Services in keeping with campus priorities.

Resources:
To accomplish this project, we will call on the enthusiasm and creativity of the entire chapter, which consists of approximately 10 members from the graduate and undergraduate student population.  In order to collect the energy consumption data, each team will request access to measurements recorded by meter boxes attached to the campus buildings, which monitor energy consumption.  Graduate student Jamie Vernon will manage the project with consultation from Mr. Al Lewandowski, manager of Demand-side Energy Management and Conservation (DSEMC) for Facilities Services.

Analysis:
After one month of educational exercises and campaigning to reduce the energy consumption in the chosen buildings, the impact will be determined by comparing the energy consumption during the test period to energy consumption during the coinciding time period from the previous year (if possible).  If this is not possible, the impact of the campaign will be determined by taking a survey of the building occupants to assess their opinion of the effectiveness of the energy conservation campaign.  In addition, each team will maintain a record of time commitment to the project in order to determine the efficiency of their energy reduction efforts.  With the assistance of Mr. Lewandowski, energy savings will be translated to monetary savings for the university.  The UT SEA chapter will report the results to the university and the campus newspaper.

Expected Outcome:
The outcome of the CER project will be dependent upon the involvement of the building occupants in the project and the effectiveness of the energy conservation campaign developed by the SEA teams.  We expect building occupants who participate in meetings, respond to surveys and receive emails will actively reduce their energy consumption.  This will have an impact on overall energy usage within the buildings.  We hope to provide valuable methods for influencing the behavior of building occupants on the University of Texas at Austin campus that can be applied on a campus-wide scale.

Scientists and Engineers for America website: http://sharp.sefora.org