Energy saving behavior among university students: A case study of Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania

International Journal of Development and Sustainability, 2018; 7 (7): 2080-2092.The purpose of this paper was to establish energy saving behaviour and practices among students living within the university hostels. The study followed a case study and descriptive research designs where data were collected from defined population using self-administered questionnaire. The information was descriptively analyzed by SPSS and qualitative methods were used to judge the interaction patterns The findings show that students are not aware of the energy cost incurred by the university. It was also revealed that students feel the accommodation bills they pay to be enough to cater for energy utility bills hence no need to be concerned on energy consumption and saving. Generally, students are not sensitive in practicing energy saving behaviour. This is attributed to inexistence of direct incentives and low awareness on importance of energy saving and also the cost associated with the high energy consumption. The paper provides useful insights on how students behave in terms of energy consumption and whether are concerned on saving energy. The findings are very essential in facilitating university in designing a strategy to optimize energy savings. The understanding of typical energy user’s behavior is one of the input necessary to be combined with technical energy consumption aspect to optimize energy saving goa