For the past two years, the Do-It-In-The-Dark program has challenged senior wood-frame houses to compete to reduce their energy use. The program’s efforts have paid off—the University’s electricity bill has decreased by over $80,000 in the past two years.
The competition was extended to program houses this year and, according to Sustainability Interns who are in charge of the competition, is likely to be extended even further in the future.
“I foresee that we will have adequate technology to expand the program to dorms in the next five years,” said Sustainability Intern Alexandra San Roman ’11. “That would get sophomores and juniors involved when they normally would have only been able to participate their senior year.”
The successful savings from the program—$63,087 in the 2007-2008 academic year and $18,255 in 2008-2009—motivated Physical Plant to encourage faculty and staff to become involved.
“We are working on a program that will distribute similar information on consumption in all other buildings on campus, with the intent being that improved awareness by the faculty and staff will also prompt a response,” said Peter Staye, Associate Director of Utilities Management.
The utilities analyzed by Physical Plant include electricity, oil, and gas. Water, however, is excluded from the data.
“All of the data we receive come from utility bills,” Staye said. “We don’t factor water into this as water bills are only issued twice a year, so there would be no way to tell you what was going on with the water.”
The annual trend of electricity usage since September 2007 has been a decrease of more than 25 percent over the course of the last three summers. Gas consumption decreased, as well. Oil consumption, however, increased between the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 academic years.
“My experience with the program over the last three years is that from October to December, the kids are great, and from January to February they are really sincere and into it, but March rolls around and people forget,” Staye said. “People give up and stop.”
The competition encourages students to make small changes to their daily routines in order to save energy.
“It’s not like people were walking around with miners’ caps on or with a candle in their hand, and were studying by flashlight,” Staye said. “People just turned off stuff that wasn’t needed.”
The competition organizers hope that shifting to environmentally friendly habits will become second nature.
“They are subconscious habits,” said Alex Provo ’10, member of the Environmental Organizer’s Network (EON). “It’s like turning off the lights; you don’t really think about it anymore, you just do it.”
While Staye is pleased with the money saved, he emphasized that the overall purpose of the program goes beyond numbers on a utility bill.
“It’s not about cost, though that is a measure everyone understands, or where the money goes, or who should be rewarded, it is about reducing our impact on the environment,” Staye said. “In the macro sense—Wesleyan and beyond—we are running out of time.”