College Initiative: Energy Conservation Behaviours During Annual College Closure 2016
Posted on Monday, December 19th, 2016
We all wonder if the little steps we take for energy conservation matter. But with the size of Algonquin College’s operations, and when many employees have multiple electronic devices on their desks and in their offices, we know for a fact that little steps for energy conservation do matter, and add up.
From data collected at the start of the ESCO2 project, we found that when all employees turn off their monitors and computers at the end of every work day, the College can save approximately $44,000 annually. No small potatoes!
For the 2014-2015 annual shut down period, Physical Resources led an awareness campaign to get more people adopting energy conserving behaviours not only during the annual shut down period, but every day. The winning team of that effort (pictured here) was Centre for Organizational Learning.
“The team in COL is very proud of being recognized as the winners in the team Power Down challenge,” states Rebecca Volk. “But what is really something to feel good about is the fact that the entire team is practicing these behaviours on a daily basis and continually looking at ways we can contribute to the College’s sustainability efforts.”
So who is doing what to make sure we are “powered down” for this holiday period? Employees play a role in this effort too!
Here is the run down:
- ITS – the team has implemented an automated shut down program that turns off all computers in computer labs
- Employees can help: the program doesn’t turn off monitors, so please turn off monitors in computer labs that are under your management including all Ottawa, Perth & Pembroke computer labs
- ITS & Marketing – the newly installed display monitors will be powered off
- Employees can help: If you notice office equipment that might be left on during the shut down period, approach ITS or your manager to inquire if someone is looking after ensuring those items being powered down.
- Ancillary Services – all monitors in Connections and all Food outlets will be powered off
- Student Commons – all display monitors under Students’ Association management & Student Support Services will be powered off
- ACCE Building – all display monitors will be powered off
- Printers – The new printers are more energy-efficient and will go into a hibernate mode drawing very little power when not in use. But, according to Karl Patton, as every little bit contributes to the effort.
- Employees can help: Manually power off the printers using the on/off switch on the left hand side of where the toner replacement is accessed.
With these steps and the work of the Physical Resource team’s Ottawa-campus energy retrofits, the Ottawa campus electricity use during the shutdown period is expected to drop to its baseline level of around 2 MW of electricity use (buildings systems, emergency lighting and other systems still remain operational and need to be powered).
Pictured in photo are the winners of the 2014-2015 Holiday Shut Down Team Challenge, Centre for Organizational Learning