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Dorm Energy Competition Spring '08!
For a two week period from March 31 through April 14 students in 16 monitored dorms will compete to see which dorm can reduce its electricity use by the largest percentage relative to baseline consumption. The goal of the competition is to educate, motivate and empower students to develop attitudes, strategies and behaviors that lead to electricity conservation.
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How does the competition work?
The dorm that reduces its electricity use by the largest percentage during the two week competition wins. An award will also be given to the dorm that reduces its energy use by the largest percentage over a one day period during the competition.
Strategies for success
 It is up to dormitory residents to figure out the best strategies for reducing electricity consumption. This website is designed to provide residents with the tools to assess how well each dorm is doing and to monitor the environmental and economic costs of electricity consumption in Oberlin's dormitories. We suggest that you take a careful look at patterns of electricity consumption that you see when you visit the Individual Dormitories section of this website. Consider appliances and technologies that are responsible for the "base load" (i.e. things that are always on in a dorm). Also consider appliances that are responsible for cyclical patterns and spikes in use that occur over the course of a day. What can dorm residents do to reduce these types of consumption?
Hey, why isn't my dorm or house part of the competition?!
The simple answer is that we ran out of money. This project was funded by an award from the U.S. EPA "People, Prosperity and the Planet" program and by the Ohio Foundation of Independent Colleges. Our priority was to ensure that we included the largest dorms and a diversity of medium sized dorms. Our goal is to eventually monitor all the dorms and college owned houses and to monitor water and heat as well as electricity use. |
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 How is the winning dorm calculated?
Since Oberlin dorms were built at different times and with different technologies, each has a distinct inherent efficiency. The period of time between the start of the semester and spring break serves as a baseline period. The dorm that consumes the least average electricity relative to this baseline consumption wins the competition. The equation used on the competition bar graph is Percent reduction = 100%*(average rate of electricity consumption so far during the competition)/(average consumption during the baseline period). This approach to competing adjusts for differences in the inherent efficiency of each dorm and the past performance of current residents in each dorm.
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