Energy Challenge cuts campus costs, water use

The winners of this year’s first-ever fall 2010 Energy Challenge are Willkie Quad, the School of Public and Environmental Affairs and Alpha Omicron Pi sorority.

Overall, the University saved more than $61,799 and avoided creating 842,116.54 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions by participating in the challenge.

AOPi used 23 percent less energy and water than its expected use, while Willkie and SPEA each used 24 percent less than expected.

Each winning building received a traveling trophy as a reward.

AOPi’s environmental chairwoman and sophomore Laurel Crutchfield said while some members of the sorority were unaware of the competition, the sorority’s house mother played a huge role in helping win the challenge.

“She just did little things for the entire month,” Crutchfield said.

While the sorority’s house mother turned off lights and switched to energy-efficient light bulbs during the challenge, Crutchfield said she always tries to emphasize recycling and turning off lights around the house.

Crutchfield also said other aspects of the house, such as motion-detecting lights, help the members save energy on a regular basis.

McKenzie Beverage, coordinator of this year’s challenge, said the original challenge began in 2008 as the capstone project for a graduate student in the School of Informatics and Computing.

“The idea was to instill a sense of conservation in students that don’t have immediate control over their environment, and who also don’t get things like a monthly bill at the end of the month,” Beverage said.

The project was originally a website launched to show students electricity and water usage around campus.

But in 2008, the project was taken over by the IU Office of Sustainability.
Beverage said it first stretched only to dorms and then grew to include greek houses and academic buildings.

To monitor each academic and residence hall building, an IU Physical Plant utility employee read participating buildings’ electricity and water meters several times a week.

Greek houses released their Duke Energy Corporation readings.

The information was then entered into the Energy Challenge website and calculated to see the greatest percent decrease in per capita electricity and water consumption of each participating building.

Beverage said that the competition makes students aware of their energy consumption, while the website shows them ways to conserve.

The first energy challenge took place in spring 2008 and again in spring 2009 and 2010, with tweaks made each year.

This semester, Read Center, McNutt Quad and Briscoe Quad were put into their own
categories of competition, which only measured water.

However, a leak in Read Center and construction in Briscoe and McNutt quads skewed the water readings in those buildings.

Ellen Hacker, Willkie center secretary, said the building achieved its win by turning off lights.

She said they stopped short of plunging the building into darkness but tried to keep lights at a low level.

“The energy challenge is really an educational tool, and it’s a platform for raising
awareness,” Beverage said.