In thinking about one of the areas students consume the most amount of electricity at Elon, I came to the conclusion that it would probably be in our dorms or living areas. In our living spaces, we are all constantly using our computers, TVs, iPods, and other technology that has become the norm. I thought it would be interesting to look at the amount of electricity we have consumed this year compared to the amount we consumed last year.
     To access this information I used Elon's sustainability dashboard (http://buildingdashboard.com/clients/elon/). Although Elon is trying to take drastic steps to improve our sustainability, our energy consumption has still not shown any improvement. In fact, so far this year, we have used more electricity every month than we did last year. For the month of January in 2009, Elon used approximately 1600 megawatt-hours of electricity. However, in 2010, Elon used 1810 mega-watt hours of electricity-a 9% increase! For the months of February through April (so far), our campus has increased our electricity consumption by 5% for February, 3% for March, and 4% for April.
      Additionally, I looked at the times of day of which people are using the most electricity. These charts show that we are using some sources of electricity all day, every day. Additionally, the energy usage during the hours of 2 am through 6 am are not significantly lower than those during the hour of 11 pm or 9 am. Why is so much electricity being used at these hours on a daily basis?
     Although the amount of energy consumption may not have drastically increased this year, it is still clear there is an increase. Even if these numbers are small, they are still there, meaning we are not decreasing our energy usage in any way, despite how many efforts to improve are publicized. To easily view comparisons of this, visit the sustainability dashboard. This dashboard is also a useful tool for viewing the energy usage in specific buildings on campus including all residential halls and main academic buildings. It is interesting to see the times of day of which we are constantly consuming energy, as well as which locations use the most of it. It may inspire you to simply unplug more of your technology before going to bed in order to use less of our energy at 5 am!