On December 24th, the College began the experiment of setting back temperatures and turning off equipment in many buildings until just before the beginning of Winter Study on January 5th. This effort appears to have saved nearly $90,000 and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 287 metric tonnes, over 1 % of our annual total.
The financial savings were split evenly between electricity and heating oil. Fifty-five percent of the energy savings came from heating. We often think of electricity as having the most utilities impact, due to the visible lighting and plug load in a building. However, in colder climates like ours, heat energy accounts for a larger portion of both emissions and spending on energy.
We can’t report on heating savings per building due to a current lack of steam metering, but we do have real-time metering of electricity by building. From those meters, we learned, not surprisingly, that large, energy-intensive buildings saved the most electricity: Paresky (34,500 kWh), Sawyer (26,874 kWh), Chandler (20,274 kWh), Bronfman (15,124 kWh), Greylock Dining (15,124 kWh), and Jesup (14,202 kWh). On average building electricity use was down 40%; electricity use in dorms was down 47%.
What did it take?
Many departments and individuals contributed to this outcome. Facilities staff worked with building occupants to identify areas that needed to be maintained at normal temperatures – from offices that couldn’t be closed because of workload to labs that housed fruit flies and other critters. And they monitored buildings during the shut down, making sure that damage due to frozen pipes was prevented and energy-savings materialized.
Campus Safety and Security put in extra effort to answer the many phone calls that were directed to the switchboard when offices were closed, and they received and sorted mail and packages that couldn’t be delivered to closed buildings. The Library, Information Technology Office, and Computer Science Departments powered down and turned off computers in labs, libraries, and classrooms. The media services group from OIT came back to work early to ensure that classroom audio visual equipment was up and running for the first day of classes and Facilities staff came to work on the weekend to start up building heating systems.
Individuals across the campus cleaned out fridges and crawled under desks to unplug computers, copiers, and coffee makers. Students were particularly good in turning off computers and mini-fridges in their rooms.
Perhaps one of the most important contributions to the effort was the tolerance and understanding by a number of faculty and staff who had work to do in their labs and offices and those who were preparing for Winter Study classes.
What we learned.
Some of our larger buildings are controlled by complex computerized systems that did not always react as expected when temperatures were turned down. The Morley Science Lab system interpreted the lower temperature setting as a call for cooling. The system then turned on fans to bring in cold air from the outside and distribute it throughout the building, resulting in an increase in electricity consumption. Facilities raised the temperature to a level that stopped the cooling process but was still lower than usual. Investing in improved building controls and reprogramming would help alleviate this problem in the future.
Monitoring temperatures in buildings without the automated controls posed an extra challenge for Facilities and Campus Safety and Security as officers had to physically visit buildings to check temperatures.
Deliveries posed a particular challenge as Campus Safety and Security offices were filled with packages and some important ones weren’t successfully delivered.
What next?
The College will need to weigh the pros and cons to determine if this experiment should be repeated. Meanwhile, Facilities will use some of the lessons learned to make improvements that will enable us to save energy throughout the year, and we hope that many of you who found ways to reduce energy consumption during the break will continue to strive to reduce energy consumption throughout the year as well.
In the end, this was a great community effort that helped Williams reduce our environmental footprint and save money. Our sincere thanks to all who pitched in.