Energy Conservation Practices Underway at Vanderbilt University

The current heat wave has lead to increased power consumption. Your curtailment efforts this summer has resulted in an overall decrease of more than 5% or 3 megawatts in the University’s power consumption. We applaud and thank you for your efforts.

As one of the largest energy consumers in Middle Tennessee, we still need to do more. Undergraduate students will begin arriving in large numbers, which results in a large spike in our institution’s energy consumption. Now is the time for us to make long-term reductions in our energy use patterns that we can sustain all year round.

Plant Operations and Plant Services are doing their part to reduce our total power consumption through central measures. We ask you to help by reducing power consumption in your work areas.

The most important steps you can take individually, in order of importance, are to:

• Adjust thermostats to moderate temperature levels (76-78 deg F in summer for office areas).  Adjust more drastically during low occupancy hours or install programmable thermostats.
• Use natural lighting whenever possible.
• Turn off lights in office, lab, classroom, conference room, bathroom, and common areas when you leave those areas.  Consider installing motion sensor lights, if possible, for long-term savings.  Furthermore, halogen and incandescent lighting uses more energy than fluorescent lights; therefore, turn off all decorative lighting and ask to replace incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs.
• Power down equipment.  Office and lab equipment can be powered down when you are not actively using it, including computers, printers, and copiers.  Unplug all office and lab equipment used infrequently. Electrical equipment such as cell phones, PDAs, and MP3 chargers can drain electricity when plugged in but unused.
• Activate the energy savings settings on your computer or printer.
• Close fume hood sashes if possible.  If you work in a laboratory space with chemical fume hoods, please close hood sashes on hoods that are not being used.  A single fume hood running 24 hrs can use as much energy as a single-family home.  When enough sashes are shut in research buildings, research has found that a building’s energy consumption can be reduced by 20-40%. (MIT Tech Talk, 6-6-2007)

For assistance with energy efficiency upgrades at the University, please contact Plant Operations.  At the Medical Center, Please Contact Plant Services.

Additional Energy Conservation Items

• Click here for more information on ways you can conserve energy on the Vanderbilt campus.
• For additional energy conservation quick facts, click here.
• Read the related article in the Vanderbilt Register from June 2007.