Elon will once again hold a spring semester contest to see which residence hall can most reduce its electricity consumption. The POWERless Energy Competition kicked off Feb. 16 at College Coffee and runs through April 6. The contest aims to improve energy habits and raise awareness of energy conservation while making a positive impact on the planet.
Forty residence halls will take part in the seven-week competition. Physical Plant has already measured baseline energy readings from sub-meters on buildings across campus.
Students will be competing to reduce energy use in their building, based on baseline power consumption. The competition will determine which building and area has the largest percentage energy reduction at the end of the competition.
There are two divisions to enhance the competition based on occupancy size – Division I and II. Residents of the building in each Division with the largest reduction in energy consumption will receive an environmentally friendly T-shirt. The name of the top residence area in each Division will be added to the custom-made oak trophy with an optical crystal figurine lit by an L.E.D. array that derives its power from a hand crank generator.
The trophy is on display in the case along the wall as you enter the Campus Shop.
Every residential area showed a reduction in energy consumption in the 2009 contest compared to the baseline. The Division I building winner was Oaks Building B with a 22.5% reduction. The Division II building winner was Danieley Flat I with a 26.8% reduction. The area winner in Division I was The Oaks with a 20.3% reduction, and the Division II area winner was the Danieley Center with a 47.3% reduction.
The competition resulted in an overall reduction of 159,054 kWh of electricity, when compared to the baseline consumption.
The majority of residence halls on campus have Web-based metering that allows occupants to see real-time energy usage for their building via a Web site. Check out the real-time energy usage Web site by clicking on the link to the right. Meters in other buildings will be read manually on a weekly basis.
Weekly results will be posted to E-net, with a “tip of the week” for reducing electricity usage.
Learn more about the competition by clicking on the POWERless Energy Competition link to the right.