It takes a village – or a university – to help preserve our environment.
For the first time, West Virginia University will compete in Campus Conservation Nationals, the largest electricity and water consumption competition for colleges and universities in the world.
From April 6-24, three WVU student organizations are challenging students, faculty and staff to reduce energy consumption in four buildings on the Evansdale Campus – Agricultural Sciences Building, South Agricultural Sciences Building, Allen and Percival Halls and the Engineering Sciences Building.
Coordinated by the U.S. Green Building Council Students – WVU, the Student Society of Landscape Architects and WVU UTV Solar Decathlon 2015, the team is one of 175 school participants competing to show the greatest percentage of decline in energy use, as determined by comparing data gathered during a one-week monitoring period to that of a three-week competition.
Those schools with the greatest decline will be eligible to win a Building Dashboard for two campus buildings with either real-time electricity monitoring or real-time water monitoring.
Now in its fifth year, the competition gives a common voice and motivation to hundreds of thousands of students across North America, all working together to reduce consumption and mitigate the impacts of climate change. It is jointly organized by the U.S. Green Building Council, Lucid, National Wildlife Federation and Alliance to Save Energy.
Using a competition season model, Campus Conservation Nationals allows participating schools to hold their three-week competitions at any point between Feb. 1 and April 30.
According to John Wray, a senior landscape architecture student in the Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design and president of USGBC Students–WVU, the organizers selected these three weeks to coincide with Earth Day on April 22.
They worked closely with WVU’s Office of Sustainability to develop the following tips to help the WVU community reduce its energy consumption:
• Charge personal computers before coming to class to avoid use of charger
• Turn off lights at the conclusion of class
• Encourage natural daylighting in classrooms
• At the beginning of class, mention that we are involved in a national competition
• Turn off any additional fans that may be in classrooms
• Take the stairs instead of the elevator
• Turn off computers and projector power supply after final class of the day
• Use cold water to wash your hands instead of warm water
Additionally, the Office of Sustainability will provide energy use data during WVU’s competition weeks for each of the monitored buildings, as well as baseline consumption results for the week of March 30.
“While our short-term goal is to encourage everyone to use less energy during the competition, we also hope the energy saving strategies become long-term habits for faculty, staff and students at WVU to increase year round savings,” said Wray.
Sharrafti Kuzmar, a junior electrical engineering major in the Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources and student lead on the Solar Decathlon project, added that it’s important to be aware of unnecessary energy usage that can be reduced in order to preserve resources for the future.
“By measuring the energy used in the Evansdale buildings, students become aware to how much energy it takes to power their classes and labs,” she said. “We’re excited to get this information out there and ways to make our campus greener.”
For the competition, real time energy usage readings will be available online at http://buildingdashboard.net/wvu/#/wvu.
Competition results and prize winners will be announced on May 8 at http://www.competetoreduce.org/.
-WVU-
law/03/31/15
CONTACT: Lindsay Willey, Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design
304.293.2381, Lindsay.Willey@mail.wvu.edu
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