Inter-Hall Carbon Challenge

What is it?

It's a competition between halls of residence, to see who can reduce their energy usage the greatest over a 2 week competition period.

Why are we doing it?

For a number of reasons:

• To prove that individual actions have a collective impact on our carbon footprint
• To raise awareness of energy use in the home and at College, to create habits that stay with us for life - saving us money and helping the planet!
• To understand the part that feedback mechanisms have on helping us reduce our energy use

How will it work?

We have measured a 'baseline' of consumption for all halls of residence - the winner will be the Hall that has reduced their consumption by the greatest amount relative to this baseline. Weekends are included in the competition.

But my hall has more occupants than the competition!

That doesn't matter; the data has been adjusted to take account of the occupancy level

I live in self catering halls, am I at a disadvantage?

No, if you are creative about the way in which you use your appliances you have a great opportunity to make a difference - for example sharing the oven when making a meal

Why isn't my hall's consumption shown on the website?

We are conducting a study on the impact of feedback on your ability to control energy use. Some halls / flats will have a real-time display, some will have posters and some will not know how they fared until the end of the competition! See the links below if you want to know how you are doing!

Do you have any ideas to save energy?

Yes, you should keep an eye out for the posters around campus. The obvious ones are turning lights off when you leave the room, don't leave computers/TV's etc on standby, unplug mobile phone chargers when not un use (they use electricity even though the phone is not plugged in!), sharing ovens when preparing food, use your laptop in the library.

Hall comparisons

Since Harper halls were built at different times and with different technologies, each has a distinct inherent efficiency. During the week of 21-25 April we monitored electricity consumption in each hall without providing feedback to residents. Average electricity consumption during this period serves as a baseline for assessing relative consumption. The equation used to determine relative consumption is = (average electricity consumed by a hall during the time period selected) / (baseline consumption for that hall).